Gabby Smith’s music has taken on many forms over the past decade, from the chamber-folk and slacker-rock shadings of their early material as Eskimeaux (and the decidedly less google-able Ó) to the more conventional indie-pop (and occasionally Laurel Canyon-y) sounds of Beast on Beast, their debut under their current moniker Gabby’s World in 2018. Their forthcoming follow-up Gabby Sword even opens with a Jenny Hval–esque art-pop installation before the very next track invokes the breezy turn-of-the-century pop-rock that’s inspired an earnest Sheryl Crow renaissance lately.
That experimentation continues today with “Just For You to Hear,” the new record’s eighth single (we’re getting a new one every month until the full record drops in December—such is the freedom of self-releasing music!) which takes the form of a minimal, synthy, and, yeah, kind of Hval-y meditation on reckoning with a lapsed friendship (as Smith more eloquently puts it, “looking into the face of a crumbling friendship and acknowledging it for the first time”). While this explanation may seem somber, “Just For You to Hear” is quite the opposite—the two-minute track is reflective, apologetic, and instrumentally uplifting.
Hear the single—which was co-produced and co-mixed with Smith’s partner Barrie—below, and hear the other seven available singles from Gabby Sword here.
