Track By Track: Jess Mills of SLO on her Atone EP

"Atone"

“Atone” came out of a chance meeting with Jack [Ritchie], who is Bearcubs. We wrote it together in an afternoon. I’d been listening to loads of old soul and folk acappellas and was really obsessing over the purity of those old records, and the lack of clutter. We spent the afternoon trying to craft a really simple melody. I really love the idea of the song feeling like a lullaby, or like a hymn; something that has that meditation about it.

I loved the space in it, but I thought it would be nice to introduce something quite modern and contemporary into this song. The chords have got a soulful feel to them, they really help to re-enforce the more R’n’B intonations of those harmonies.

"Bird in the Cage"

“Birds in the Cage” on a boozy, balmy L.A. evening, as they are. We wrote it at the piano – the only recording I had of it for a couple of months was the voice note on my phone.

Lyrically, it’s a song about isolation, and feeling incredibly alone in world that can feel very frenetic. When you feel alone in that capacity you can feel like you’re the only person in the world who feels like that. If the world was built on a narrative of what people really felt, as opposed to the narrative we spin just to maintain a good front, I think we’d see each other in a whole new light. Maybe we wouldn’t individually feel so cellular and isolated. Maybe people would feel more connected. There have been times in my life when I’ve had to put on a brave face because the alternative just isn’t bearable. Inside you’re breaking yourself, molecule by molecule.

Even though everything I’ve said sounds quite heavy, “Birds in the Cage” has actually got a tone of optimism to it. It’s about acknowledging the fact that we all feel like this. I’m not crazy, I’m not on my own. This feeling is actually what connects us, not the thing that separates us.

"Blind"

“Blind” is the other side of the coin. It’s about the web of destruction you weave around yourself when you’re not being honest with yourself; the tripwires that you create quite intentionally just to facilitate the collapse of something that isn’t holding you up anymore. We all do stupid things, and sometimes you can do things that really hurt people that you love, not out of carelessness, but because you simply can’t bear to face the truth either.

When something’s too hard to face yourself – when you’re behaving in a really stupid, destructive way – it’s because the truth of what needs to be addressed is too painful for you too. Particularly in a relationship situation, where you’re the one that’s considering leaving, no-one’s a winner. Even the person that leaves feels bereft and hideous for leaving - in a different way, but just as brutally as the one who is left. “Blind” is a song about that.

"Said & Done"

We wrote this song in an afternoon. It was really nice writing it with Krusoe; as he was singing it we could map out a lot of the harmonic arrangements. It happened really spontaneously - it captures something that we both really loved in the first takes. It’s different to the normal writing process for me, where I spend quite a lot of time by myself, quite considered. You spend quite a lot of time with it in your head before it’s committed to a recording, whereas this just happening in quite a spontaneous way. I really loved working like that.

It’s a song about being reunited with someone who you loved completely, who you haven’t seen for a really long time, and rediscovering the wound that you thought had healed absolutely hasn’t. In that moment, the tiniest details of that person become so amplified. It’s almost like they become universally defining features. Somebody’s smell, and the texture of their skin, have mapped your world. Even though there’s a real sadness to it, I think there’s some acceptance in there as well. There’s a little dose of letting go.