‘I like to break myself,’ Jocelyn Stemilyn begins to sing, softly, ‘You probably didn’t know that’. The singer-songwriter works through several devastating themes on her latest single: love and loneliness; her exasperation, displayed front and centre; a pretty pedicure hiding her pain, like a too-wide smile stretched over sad lips. There’s a lot going on sonically; it’s a song that’s carefully, painstakingly crafted. The beats build up in the background: it grows into a full groove – the bass thumps, the synths twirl – but stutters and segues, and the last minute of the song sounds like a lullaby for the self. ‘It’s time to come clean that what we want is less than what we need.’
There’s an accompanying music video, too (frequent collaborator Dae Kim directs, with additional shots by hqa aka HAVERHUCK VHS), in which Jocelyn goes through the motions: posing for a family portrait; standing her ground as people, walking past, shove her aside; painting her nails. When Jocelyn tears down the wallpaper behind her, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' comes to mind – and we ask, at which point does the lady go insane? It doesn’t end well, but what’s ‘well’, anyway?
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