With her newly announced third album Kiss Big, Dublin-based songwriter Alibhe Reddy zooms in on familiar post-heartbreak feelings of disassociation as the individual struggles to put their life back together. Citing Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble and Sarah Kane’s Crave as literary influences, the project blows up those novel’s most intimate themes to fit a capacity for rousing choruses Reddy honed on big festival stages like Glastonbury over the past five years.
The lead single from the record, “So Quickly, Baby,” demonstrates these ideas both musically and lyrically. The track opens with ambient instrumentation, as Reddy sets the scene with a calm vocal delivery, before the explosive chorus hits nearly a minute in as she questions how an ex could possibly move on so quickly. “This is the meltdown track,” Reddy shares. “The album’s neurotic heartbeat. A tug-of-war between grace and chaos. The verses attempt to be the bigger person while the choruses unveil the question at the heart of it: ‘How are you already fine and when will I be?’ It’s about the push-pull between wanting to be gracious and wanting to scream. That weird neurotic whiplash when someone seems totally fine while you feel like you’ve been dropped in the middle of nowhere without a map.”
Check out the music video shot in Reddy’s hometown below, and pre-order Kiss Big ahead of its January 10 release via Don Giovanni here.
