Brooklyn-based trio Say She She create music that sounds like glimmering soundtracks to sweaty '80s nights. The group—consisting of Piya Malik, Sabrina Mileo Cunningham, and Nya Gazelle Brown—blend post-punk, dance music from a number of eras, and electro-pop thrillers to create something deeply reminiscent of party-starting music yet strikingly unique in its own right. On their new album, Silver, the trio tap into influences from a number of different genres, including Chic and Donna Summer, Liquid Liquid, David Mancuso's loft parties, '90s R&B, Asha Puthli, and more. These songs are more than just good times, though.
On Silver, the band isn’t afraid to get political. Songs touch on the abortion ban bill and gun reform, and another track on the album is dedicated to Guerilla Girls, the famous mid-'80s group of NYC feminist activists. To celebrate the release of Silver, we had the group walk through all the songs on their new album. Read their insights and stream along below.
1. "Reeling"
"Reeling" is our femme forward incantation to the masses. A call to “kick the door down, smash the ceiling… leave ‘em 'Reeling.'”
We love dancing so much to this one!
2. "Don't You Dare Stop"
This song was written as a sort of passionate sonnet about a former flame who once whispered the words "Don't You Dare Stop." You can feel the amorous yearning and we sometimes get emotional singing it. It’s one of our more sultry songs with breathy high tones at the end.
3. "Astral Plane"
We want listeners to climb aboard the dreamline with us and buckle up for a fantasy facing cosmic ride when they hear this song! Who wouldn’t wanna meet their lover for a rendez-vous on an astral plane?
4. "C'est Si Bon"
"C'est Si Bon" is our discodelic anthem to freak out on the global dancefloor! We wrote it to remind people to seize the day and make your time count. Part Parisian playground, part '90’s LA shopping mall glamor, with an enchanting explosion of 70’s cool downtown New York, and the gutter glitter of London nightlife. We want you to throw your hands up and declare your heart’s desires! What’s the worst that could happen?
“When all is said and done…the world keeps spinning on….”
5. "Entry Level"
Satirizing the trope of the sexist boss, we wrote this song as an exorcism—calling out the “condescension without consequences” attitude so many of the mansplainers have enjoyed for far too long! If one more guy tells us not to worry our pretty little heads about things that very much concern us, we will write an extra verse and re-release it! Haha!
6. "Passing Time"
This song was written about a newly formed love nest in lockdown. It delves into the sweetness of stillness while you discover each other.
7. "Think About It"
This song is a love letter to our friends from the New York night life of the last decade—and a celebration of all the joy we caught at late night loft parties. How natural it was to form these bonds with our fellow dwellers in the nooks and corners of the city.
8. "Questions"
“Questions” probes at power dynamics and the nature of oppression—and what it does to the human psyche. If there are always bound to be winners and losers then, "who wins? Who falls behind?”
9. "Forget Me Not"
This song is our ode to New York City’s Guerilla Girls and to all the women’s rights and protest movements who have paved the way for change before us. The hook vocals were inspired by The Flower Duet (Lakmé), and this song is our psychedelic siren call to disrupt and dismantle male dominated spaces.
10. "Never Say Never"
This song explores a love affair that is at times uncertain, all your time spent waiting and wanting someone to take a step forward with you. "Are we ever together...But we never say never."
11. "The Water"
This song delves into the feeling of rediscovering love when you didn’t think it was possible to love again. ”Must have been the water.”
12. "Echo in the Chamber"
"Echo In The Chamber" is our plea to the elected elite to enter the hotbed of debate around gun control and stop the proliferation of shootings in the USA.
We have printed 5000 postcards which we are giving out at record shops around the country and asking listeners to mail them to their senators to encourage them to support the Background Check Expansion Act.
13. "Bleeding Heart"
Coralling a crate of emotions, "Bleeding Heart" is our song about chasing a folkloric love that's so devastating you travel the world but cant escape it.
We were channeling the edgy undertones of Grace Jones, '70a Punjabi playback singers, and the psychedelic yearnings of Linda Peracs on this one!
14. "Find a Way"
This song is about still holding out hope that your dreams can come true even when big bad city beats you down.
15. "Norma"
"Norma" is an urgent call to action to support the protection of women’s rights and preserving the right to choose. It was written in the wake of the leaks that the Supreme Court were going to overturn Roe vs Wade.
16. "Silver"
Our title track was written about finding a long lost sister, losing a brother, and remembering a mother. Coming in at nearly nine minutes long, it is our longest song—with a winding instrumental piano solo—and our sparse vocals are meant to help you drift off to sleep. The physical album concludes with a locked-groove of white noise—or as we have called it “silver noise”—which we made with our whispers at Killion Sound so you can for once actually fall asleep with the record on the deck without needle on paper! FL
