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about
It’s a rare and potent feeling: hearing a voice that immediately commands your attention, doesn’t remind you of anyone else, and transforms the energy in a room. Ivy Meissner, lead singer and songwriter of Brooklyn-based capital-R rock’n’roll quartet Little Mystery, is one of those singers, with a deeply embodied, blues-inflected style that derives its power from alluring contrasts. Her voice is simultaneously smoky and crystalline—inviting but defiant, wry but vulnerable. It exudes the same warmth, grit, and restless energy that defines her songwriting, which combines the erudition of singer-songwriters like Tom Waits and Joni Mitchell with the attitude of Chrissie Hynde and Bonnie Raitt.
Meissner’s debut single, “Burning Blue,” is a bittersweet ballad that offers an initial window into the catalog of music she has been honing for years—a moment of florid beauty among her treasure trove of overdriven barnburners, soulful cruisers, and intricately arranged folk-rock songs. Supported by string gestures by composer Alex Weston, its serpentine melody mirrors her narrator’s evolving turmoil while contemplating the uncertain future of a relationship that feels too intimate to allow for individual growth. Meissner and guest vocalist and pianist Alena Spanger ascend toward the stratosphere at the apex of the chorus, cascading from a lingering, fragile top note into elliptical melodic phrases that illustrate the lyrical imagery: “I’ll run circles round my mind/Lose myself to keep your eye.”
lyrics
Lyrics:
Was I dreaming?
Took the last light of day
To lose you in the gray
I’ve been caustic
A little lost in my life
Could you forgive me for these times?
Knowing that the night could fall
Before we had the chance to
Love real
But I’ve gone
Far into my own blue
And he’s wondering if it's right
Cause I wasn’t me tonight
I’ll run circles round my mind
Lose myself to keep your eye
Crack the seal
To free the light that's holding me
Burning blue for them all to see
Chase the feeling
Before you wake to see me fall
You help me, help me
Warn it off
When I feel so small
Take me out far from this tourist town
To where the trees grow tall
Where the beauty blinds away my lost cause
Baby could you believe?
I'll be strong again you’ll see
Want to be here
Want to love
Through my doubts that echo on
Don’t let your love swallow me whole
And carry me out through it all
In your shadow losing light
Can’t hear my voice outside your mind
credits
released March 5, 2024
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Written by Ivy Meissner
Produced by Ivy Meissner and Julian Cubillos
String arrangement by Alex Weston
Cinematic soul influenced by the soundtracks to ’70s Giallo films, the latest from Ella Thompson is all slow smolder. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 28, 2023
