When you listen to Brittany Campbell and Candace Quarrels’ music as Mermaid, it makes sense that the duo met at a performance of Hamilton—a theater sensation merging the previously disparate interests of American history and rap. With their debut album Iridescence forecast to arrive by the end of the year, the R&B duo is sharing a similar agenda with each new genre-blending single they release, with a press release promising hints of “alt-rock, jazz, punk, pop, and”—yes—“metal” across the LP.
Yet their latest track “Purr” proves that the duo also pairs unlikely influences beyond genre in their songwriting, with the new single first taking shape after a 4 a.m. encounter with their cat Splatt (“She has this very loud, deep purr,” Quarrels shares, “so Britt recorded it”) and the moment’s news cycle being focused on the murder of George Floyd. “A song that started off as this funky, mucky, playful feeling became so clear,” Campbell says. Despite that shift in lyrical tone, the track’s final version remains fairly upbeat—blending the influence of turn-of-the-millennium R&B with a punky blues-guitar riff—in spite of its seething lyrics.
“The world was raging, and we were stuck inside the house, ingesting viral videos and imagery of brutality all day long on social media,” Campbell continues, commenting on the lyrical themes. “In that time, there were a couple of times when allies ended up proving to be ultimately performative. For both of us, there was a loss of a certain kind of innocence about the world. The song is called ‘Purr’ not only because it showcases our cat, but also because it represents the ultimate softness of a being that has so much potential for ferocity, beauty, and action…Black people are that way.”
Check out the video below, which sees the duo synchronizing dance moves in front of a projector playing old news footage.
