Maddie Jay juxtaposes dragging anxiety with an uplifting melody on new track "Undertow"

Originally from Northern Canada, Maddie Jay left home to study bass in Boston before settling in LA as a self-proclaimed gun for hire. Over the years she’s had to balance her own music with the touring schedule of others. But as we settle into our new gig-free reality, she’s got more time to focus on her own releases.

Sharing previous single "The Peanut Butter Song" in February, we complemented its "laid-back, ethereal vocals, funk-fuelled synths and delicately meandering melodies." From the EP Mood Swings, the release picked up support online garnering close to two million total streams.

New single "Undertow" is a bouncy and vibrant slice of dream-pop. "I’ve been feeling so alone, swimming in your undertow" she sings with a melodically multi-tracked swathe of vocals. The track tells the story of a relationship where one partner is struggling with depression and unintentionally drags the other down.

Jay wrote, recorded and produced the track in her East LA apartment before enlisting Grammy winning engineer Emily Lazar Lodge (Haim, Maggie Rogers) to master it. The single feels like a step-forward from the fuzzed out pop of her previous releases. Constructed with many moving parts, the flashes of synth, samples and saccharine balance out the lyrical darkness.

Jay also recently spent around 60 hours creating her own stop-motion video to accompany the track with $50 of arts and crafts materials and a home scanner. "Did this allll summer so you could stare at your phones for 2.5 minutes and say "huh that’s kinda cool"" she posted on her Instagram. It’s a brilliant, warm, creative clip that perfectly mirrors the song. Kinda cool.