An alt-pop singer-songwriter who has explored the world, Perth born and raised musician Felicity has landed in Nashville surrounding herself with a dedicated writing team.
Now an East Music Row Records artist collaborating with some of the industry's best and brightest - building an arsenal of unreleased songs in the process – Felicity recently released her sophomore EP '4PM In The Morning'.
The five-track project is brimming with fantastical compositions bursting with energy. Bjork meets Yeah Yeah Yeahs with hints of BENEE. It's a bright, effervescent ride countered by ruminative, introspective songwriting that allows Felicity's powerful vocals to soar.
"I called the EP '4PM In The Morning'; it's a line from one of the singles on the record, 'Half Sad', and I think it really captures where I'm at in my head/ life right now as well as when I was creating the record," Felicity says.
"The world feels like it's turned on its head at the moment; up is down, day is night and all I can do is write songs and watch the sun come up 'cause I haven't gone to bed yet."
Here, Felicity shares some stories and background behind each song that features on '4PM In The Morning'.
Bad Waste Of Good Oxygen
I wrote this one after my (ex) team dropped me unexpectedly. Processing my emotions one by one, I started with anger and wrote 'Bad Waste Of Good Oxygen' as a result. It's a little more bitter than I'd like to come across now, but in the moment all I saw was suffocating (pun intended) shades of red.Bringing those feelings into the studio, Austin (Luther, producer) and I wrote this one over two days. On day one it was a short, breathy, angry pop song. We liked it but the throttling emotion and depth were missing.
On the second day, Austin went nuts and changed the rhythm at the end of the song, creating the outro. It was epic. I was in the mood for some big vocals that day too, so I ad-libbed following Austin's instrumentation and that was that.
I'll Have What He's Having
Asia (Whiteacre, songwriter), Dan (Pallarin, producer) and I had a hell of a good time writing this song. Dan is such a talented guy and everything he was playing on piano sparked a hundred fun-pop melodies. Quickly the song started to take shape.We wrote it to be a love song on the surface, but beneath that it's more about the feeling of being jealous of those who came with a healthier, kinder self-image than I seem to have. The main chorus lyric is 'I'll have what he's having, what's it like to be nice to yourself? I'm just mean, dammit,' and that's a good synopsis for me as a person but also the song as a whole.
Half Sad
This was the first song we (Asia Whiteacre, Johnny Gates, Austin Luther, Felicity) wrote for the EP and it really set the tone for the work as a whole.The elements of string pads and synths accompanying the live alt-pop production I know and love was an exciting discovery. Listening to 'Half Sad' after we wrote it made me want to get in my car, roll the windows down and drive forever with it playing in the background. I strived to permeate that feeling all throughout the EP.
Denver Airport
Johnny (Gates, writer), Austin (Luther, producer), and I wrote this one after I'd just travelled back from Denver, a city I called home my senior year of high school and where some of my family still lives – point being parts of my heart definitely rest there.I've been through the airport enough times to know about all its style quirks and conspiracies, so when I got back to the studio in Nashville we started writing the first lyrics almost as a joke. Funny thing is, it might be my favourite song I've written.
I decided to write it about the one and only boy that broke my heart in Colorado. I was 17 and thought I'd never find anyone like him ever again. The drama was so real (lol) and I needed the sonics to match. The strings, lamenting guitar riff, bold live drums, and stacked vocals are all about the dramatics.
Carnivorous Butterflies
One of my favourite writes ever. We (Asia Whiteacre, Johnny Gates, Austin Luther, Felicity) wrote the whole thing outside at Shelby Park in East Nashville right on the water. The birds were chirping, the air was crisp, two guitars, four brains, what better time to write about flesh eating butterflies?Joking – the song's actually about that feeling in your gut when you have a big, old crush on someone and you start to feel insane all the while everyone else is keeping their composure. We juxtaposed the dramatic lyrics with light, acoustic leaning production – Austin even put bird noises in there. Yay!
