I heard “Orange” (above) by Anna Justen just after it was released. I was working with headphones on and he slow build from a conventional singer-songwriter arrangement to something more dense and complex was completely disruptive to whatever I was doing. Just as the song sounds like it’s ready to erupt, it falls apart into a wobbly, clipped ending.
“Orange” almost feels like the story of Justen’s music output so far. Having moved from Seattle to Montreal for school, she released her first EP Saintclaire in 2021, which has a folk and country-influenced singer-songwriter sound to it. Over the time since Saintclaire, through her follow-up 2022 EP Morning and a run of subsequent singles, she’s become more adventurous, embracing grittier guitars, bedroom and hyperpop elements in greater measure.
Or, in the case of “Individualism”, from last October, dense guitars and vocal effects that call back to the grunge days of the Seattle music scene. The lyrics and the video are both mildly reminiscent of “Jeremy”. This is a masterclass on how to make a moody and memorable video on a shoestring budget:
That song seems to have some relation to the first single from this series, called “Peppermint”. The candy on the forest floor and the sinister visuals call back to the lyrics of “Peppermint”: ‘Peppermint, Bedroom / Bottle top, Cellar doors (don’t wanna) / Stay locked”. It’s deceptively gentle, but the lyrics hint at something very dark, and by the end the clipped and distorted vocal sounds like something that soundtracks an A24 trailer:
These new songs are distinguished by their black-and-white ink drawing covers (apparently drawn by her dad, which is pretty great). Justen seemed to adopt the more adventurous production style (and maybe the cover art inspiration) around the time she released “Things I Wish You Said” with pop musician Avery Cochrane in 2023:
Her debut album will be released May 8th, 2025. The next single is “Piece by Piece” and it’s due Feb 14, 2025, and it’ll probably be featured here too.
Further Reading
Profile in The Concordian (2021)
