TRACK REVIEW: Biig Piig - American Beauty

TRACK REVIEW:

Biig Piig

American Beauty

9.1/10

The track, American Beauty, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBW_loUsZOI

GENRES:

Alternative/Indie

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

The E.P., The Sky Is Bleeding, is available via:

https://music.apple.com/ph/album/the-sky-is-bleeding-ep/1562691636

RELEASE DATE:

21st May, 2021

LABEL:

RCA

TRACKLISTING:

Remedy

Tarzan

Baby Zombies

Lavender

Drugs

American Beauty

__________

THIS is a review…

I am excited about. I am a big fan of Biig Piig (Jess Smyth). I am going to get to her new E.P., The Sky Is Bleeding, and a track from it that I am keen to explore. She is an awesome talent and someone who evolves from E.P. to E.P. I want to approach Biig Piig from a number of angles and discuss a few things that, I think, give us a bigger impression of a stunning artist. I want to start with that name. Some people may know the origins already. If not, then it was brought up in an interview with Loud and Quiet:

“The name Biig Piig was the product of an inebriated night with mates – a name she read on a pizza menu. It started as a joke, until she uploaded her first track to Soundcloud with the name. Now, it’s stuck.

“I feel like the more I hang out with myself, and the more I hang out with my music, it’s becoming more apparent that’s what I am. I’m just a big mess, in a nice way,” she says. “Everything, my whole life, has been a big scramble. The big pig… the big mess… but in a way, that’s the sweetest thing”.

I am looking at social media and a lot of attention is being brought to Biig Piig and her fantastic new E.P. She herself is posting images of her/the E.P. appearing on billboards. It is an exciting time for the Irish-born artist. I think that she has a long future and she will continue to make some incredibly exciting and original music.

I want to spend some time discussing her early life and upbringing. Some may wonder how it pertains to what she is doing now. I feel we get a clearer impression of an artist by doing so. Rather than merely expend a few lines about a song, I aim to go deeper and examine the wider story. I am interested learning more about Biig Piig (Smyth) and what her family life was like. Coming back to the Loud and Quiet interview…and one gets an impression of the family life of one of the most impressive young artists in music:

“Jess Smyth was born in Cork, Ireland in 1998. The eldest of four siblings, she has two younger brothers and a sister. When she was four the family moved to the Costa del Sol. As an infant her brother was struggling with asthma, and the GP recommended relocation to a warmer climate would help ease his symptoms. Her first memories were formed there in Spain, like on her first day at school, aged nine, when she turned up not knowing any Spanish, puzzled at a textbook and listened to the kids around her “speaking gibberish”. She learned the language quickly, and grew to appreciate the country, people and culture, until one day, around the age of 12, a change in local governmental property law meant that her family lost their house (years on, her father is still battling the case). It forced a move back to Ireland, to a cramped, shared family space in a village in county Waterford. Following that, there was a short stint in Kerry before the family bought a pub and resettled in west London. They all live above it, and Jess still sometimes helps behind the bar.

None of this movement Smyth minded. Sure, it meant there was disruption – she’s been up and down school years like a ladder – and there have been tough, isolating, lonely periods, but it has, she reflects, made her “adaptable”.

“It makes you more outgoing; more of a chameleon,” she says in a soft Irish accent. “But also brave because you know that no matter how much you move there’s always going to be people who don’t like you and people who do like you. It doesn’t matter. It’s just about knowing who you are and enjoying that”.

Not to repeat myself, but there is another interview – this time for CRACK - that also highlights Biig Piig’s earliest years and how she spend years in Spain. I was not aware of the fact she spent time in Spain. It is another fascinating side to a remarkable artist:

“The oldest of four, she was born in Cork but spent her formative years in Spain, where her family relocated on advice that a warmer climate might improve her brother Paddy’s severe asthma. Her parents got by running bars and restaurants in Marbella and the Costa del Sol, before being forced to move back to Ireland around the time of the financial crash, when the local council revoked their property without warning.

Smyth is impressively relaxed about the whole experience today, be it Spanish bureaucrats forcing her family into bankruptcy or the wrench of starting all over again in Ireland while on the cusp of adolescence. Then there were the subsequent moves to Waterford and eventually west London, where her father still runs a pub today.

“[Moving around] was isolating, but it’s shaped me in good ways,” she muses, sounding as easygoing as she does in her breezy bars. “I don’t ever feel scared to go out on my own. I’m always out and about trying to make friends. And I’m always losing shit like my phone all the time, but I don’t really have attachments to things. Even with people, I think I get attached very quickly and then detach just as quickly”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Darkroom London

Just before coming on to a particular job Biig Piig (I shall refer to her by the artist name rather than her real name for consistency) had that I was not expecting, I’ll finish up by bringing in a bit more information regarding her background and the earliest musical memories. This intriguing and deep interview from our culture sheds some light on the early music listening habits of Biig Piig:

“What are some of your early memories of listening to music?

There are different stages. I feel like I remember listening to Gabrielle when I was really young. My mum used to love her and it used to make her really happy. That was kind of when I discovered that music could really pull someone out of a bad place. It was like watching her sing that in the car when she was going through something really tough, and I feel like just to watch her kind of, like, light up with Gabrielle’s song ‘Sunshine’ … That was when I think I really understood the power of music. I remember listening to her quite a lot, and then when I was like 13 or whatever, I liked a lot of pop-punk and acoustic music and my taste was all over the shop… A lot of old school R&B. It was like – yeah, it was just a mess. And I don’t feel like there was one specific genre that I loved. I think it was just kind of anything that makes me feel good, or not, like songs that really make me feel… Something. But there’s a few different artists; Ben Harper, Bowling for Soup, Genuine – I used to listen to him a lot. Who else? Gabrielle and Van Morrison was played a lot, and Leonard Cohen”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

Maybe it is not completely relevant to her path into music, though I was struck by the fact that Biig Piig used to work in a casino! Not that this is so alarming. I just wasn’t conscious of it. I love the fact that, with every interview, something incredible comes to light. Coming back to the Loud and Quiet interview. We get to find out more about the casino job:

“When Jess Smyth was working as a poker dealer she met a lot of different people. She’d do five nights straight, clocking on at 10pm, clocking off at 7am. “Apocalypse hours,” she says, “you wouldn’t see anyone.” At one point, at the Leicester Square casino, she was spending intense 90-minute spells officiating tables, dealing cards and keeping order. While she maintained a professional appearance, internally it was often an emotional ride. There would be the drunk guys from Chelsea flashing their cash at the end of their night, career gamblers checking into games like it was a factory job, and chancers. Men – it’s always men, she says – who would turn up with their modest savings in the hope of leaving with a bulging wallet. Those were the tough ones. The people truly taking a gamble. “It was definitely the most emotional job I’ve had in my entire life. I must have cried so many times,” she recalls. “You’d get guys coming up to you saying, ‘you’ve just lost my month’s wages – thank you very much.’ Other guys would be like, ‘I can now take my child to Disneyland!’ It was a big ball of emotion. You have to be like the mum of the table – take everything on, take everyone else’s problems on and hold it together.”

Even though the hours were unsociable, the clientele sometimes challenging and the constant exercising of her brain with the maths exhausting, the money was “grand”. She started playing poker for a short while, but stopped when she got cocky, lost £500 and decided she’d like to see some daylight.

That nocturnal commute from Hammersmith to The Hippodrome was the 19-year-old’s favourite job to date. And even though she’s still young, she’s had a few. The first was probably waiting tables in her family’s restaurant in the old town square in Marbella, Spain. Much later on, once she turned 16, she took a job at Hollister at Westfield shopping centre, Shepherd’s Bush. She reckons she “stuck out like a sore thumb” and quit retail after a couple of months. In between that and the casino she’s worked as a fundraiser for British Red Cross (daytime) and a tequila bar waitress (night time). She also went to Beer School, worked in a draft house and, at one point, was employed as a babysitter for a family in Switzerland for two months.

“I feel like with every job it’s important to learn something new,” she reasons, thinking about her packed C.V. “If you’re not learning something new you’re never going to feel happy about what you’re doing.” Right now, her LinkedIn profile would read: bar worker (helping in her parents’ pub) and musician”.

Not every interview explores previous careers regarding musicians. Although there is no way Biig Piig will be dissolved and there will be this return to other professions, I really like how itinerant she has been. I think all of these experiences have shaped her and fed into the music.

PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK

Not that there was this consistent love of music from Biig Piig. Most artists face times when they are not completely committed to music or doubt their choices. That happened for the London-based artist. Coming back to the CRACK interview, there was this time when Biig Piig was not enamoured with music and there was this revival:

“Some things do stick though, like her relationships with Lava La Rue and Mac Wetha, fellow members of multi-disciplinary arts collective NiNE8. They met in a music tech class at Richmond College, but fell out of touch when Smyth quit aged 17 to move in with her then-boyfriend (a period she now refers to as “a rough patch”). When the relationship ended, Smyth found herself back in touch with her old classmates by chance, when La Rue invited her to a party. It proved a pivotal encounter.

“[La Rue and Wetha] were having a cypher in the next room,” she recalls. “I’d been in jams at open mics but I’d never seen one like that before, where you have an instrumental playing. I walked into the room, sat down and was having a great time, and then they passed me the mic. I just improvised, and they were like, ‘Woah.’ I thought, ‘This feels sick.’”

The experience reignited Smyth’s creativity after having “completely fallen out of love with music” around the time of leaving college. Where it had previously been pop-punk bands or acoustic balladeers like Lewis Watson and Ben Howard that fed her imagination, she now found herself gravitating towards hip-hop and neo-soul. “I loved the way it was a lot more of a mellow vibe,” she explains. “The way that stories were told and the sounds they used… It just suddenly made sense”.

I will talk more about Lava La Rue soon enough. Before that, there are a few bits of interviews that I will sprinkle in - as they create a bigger picture of Biig Piig and the creative process.

PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK

In 2020, Biig Piig spoke with LADYGUNN. She speaks about her creative process, being part of a collective and having an interest in Rap and Hip-Hop:

“WHAT IS YOUR SONGWRITING PROCESS? DOES IT START FROM JUST ACOUSTIC GUITAR AND VOICE, OR ARE YOU INTEGRATING PRODUCTION FROM THE BEGINNING?

Things have changed so much since the beginning. The way that it’s working now is my friend who produces beats will send me over some stuff, and I write the lyrics and melodies over that. Right now, I’m very focused on that approach – lyrics and melodies on beats. I still feel very connected to the instrumentation and beat making of it though. When I go into a session with a producer, I’ll just have a strong feeling when something clicks instrumentally.

FOR YOU, DID CO-WRITING AND TOPLINING COME NATURALLY FROM THE BEGINNING, OR WAS IT A TOUGH ADJUSTMENT FROM MAKING YOUR MUSIC PRIVATELY?

That cypher was the first time I had really tried toplining. We were all having fun with it and just rapping and singing over these random instrumentals on YouTube. At my darkest points, music has always pulled me back and that was a really big turning point for me in the way I created my own music. It opened up a lot of new possibilities. I had such a great time, and Ava (Lava La Rue) was like “we’re starting up this collective and would love for you to join. We are just going to play music and make art.” I said, “that sounds so nice. 100%,” and then Lloyd invited me to his house to make music whenever I was ready.

I used to look up random instrumentals like Mike City and these other guys. I loved how I could make the tune my own by redoing all the stuff on top of it. So that’s when I started releasing things. I started putting what I was making with Lloyd on Soundcloud. This sounds super cringe, but I feel like the instrumental stuff is already saying something and the words I make help express that. I’ve always loved that process of being able to sense the emotion in the song and then being able to translate it into words. Since then, I’ve always worked that way. I’m quite happy and comfortable doing what I am doing right now.

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Alexander Harris

WHEN YOU FIRST DID THAT CYPHER AND YOUR INTEREST GREW IN HIP HOP AND RAP WERE THERE ANY ARTISTS THAT WERE PARTICULARLY INFLUENTIAL TO YOU AS YOU LEARNED TO WRITE YOUR OWN BARS?

Yeah, so Eryka Badu was definitely my first influence. The way she flows on a track and uses her words and ad-libs and everything. It just feels like it’s from another planet. It’s so cool. I was also very drawn to Biggie as well and a lot of rappers from around London. I’ve been so lucky to be part of the scene here. It’s incredible. Lord Apex, Finn Foxell – they’re so sick. The talent and the lyrics and the way they flowed on tracks was super inspiring. I think I listened and learned a lot to the people I was around the most.

YOU’VE BEEN A PART OF THE NINE 8 COLLECTIVE FOR A LONG TIME, BUT YOU DIDN’T SIGN TO A MAJOR LABEL FOR A WHILE. WHAT WERE SOME OF THE TOUGHEST PARTS ABOUT BEING INDEPENDENT?

I was very fortunate to have the support from the NiNE8 collective when it came to certain things. Like making the music video for 24K, which I released independently in 2017, everyone was helping me. Even having the producers in the collective to help me make quality stuff was super helpful when I was independent. It was still difficult to get everything together, but there was always a huge sense of satisfaction after pulling everything together. There was a sense of “wow, look what we made.”

Honestly, the tougher stuff was really just paying rent [laughs]. I wanted to spend all my time devoted to the thing that I loved doing, but it’s just kind of impossible when you’re working constantly. Financials were the toughest thing.

YOU’VE SINCE SIGNED TO A MAJOR LABEL AND BUILT A LARGER TEAM. HOW DID YOU MAINTAIN YOUR SENSE OF SELF AND YOUR INDEPENDENCE AS ALL OF THAT GREW?

I feel like there is a feat that everything will change or they will change you as an artist after you sign a deal. But I think I was very lucky because I had built a world around the music I was making already on my own. When I signed, I felt my direction was already clear, and they wouldn’t have signed me if they didn’t want me to make the things I was making. You definitely have to find your footing while you’re trying to communicate with a larger team. You need to know exactly what you want. I think that those who go into it thinking “oh, I don’t really know what I want with it” are the people who get pushed by labels into a certain direction. I think having creative control and being clear that you want that is so important”.

Bringing in a random bit of interview background from Fred Perry now. This was a quickfire interview but, still, some useful and illuminating nuggets came up regarding Biig Piig and her musical heroines:

“Which subcultures have influenced you?

Neo Soul - Harmonies and delivery of lyrics and the space given by the artists for lyrics to fall onto the instrumentals.

Acoustic Folk - The way its stripped back and so raw, earthy sounds I love.

Hip Hop - The stories and ways to capture an atmosphere with the vulnerability of rapping or speaking a truth over a beat is beaut.

Lofi Hip Hop - The structure of the beats and the bass a lot of them use I find really interesting its almost sounds like it was an improvised recording to me sometimes.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?

Tina Turner. I went to see the musical about her life recently and she’s so inspiring. Everything about that woman is otherworldly to me.

Of all the venues you’ve been to or played, which is your favourite?

Village Underground, my last London show was just a big moment I think. The venue space itself is really cool, it's one big room but the crowd at that show and the way the room is built just really captured an energy I hadn’t experienced before. It was mad.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?

Lava La Rue. She’s one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. That woman will overcome anything in her way. She honestly lives and breaths the art she makes and always gives a voice to issues surrounding it. She's incredible.

It was either 'Take a Bow' by Rihanna or 'Punk Rock 101' by Bowling for soup.

A song that defines the teenage you?

'Walk Away' by Ben Harper”.

Whilst she is based in London now – and spent some time in Spain -, Biig Piig began life in Ireland. It makes sense moving to a city with more opportunities. It couldn’t have been easy transitioning and upping sticks. In an interview with COMPLEX, Biig Piig talked about moving to London and how she found living in a big city:

“Where are you living at the moment?

White City. I moved from Peckham two or three weeks ago. My mum runs a hostel here so I’m staying here for now. I wanted to move somewhere cheaper and easy-going; I’ll just see how it goes, and then I’ll make a decision where I want to live after the tour. I’m not really a homebody, if I’m honest: I like being out and about. I used to have a thing where I couldn’t write if I was outside of my room, but I’ve learned to adapt that when I’m on tour. I get itchy feet after a few months in jobs, relationships, my home. I’m writing most of the new stuff in studios in sessions, not outside of the studio. When I’m with people who are making the beat, I like to keep everything all in one place mentally.

How changed do you feel by your experience of living in London?

I feel like you really have to know yourself well living in any city or you can quickly become isolated. There comes a point when you just put yourself out there because you can’t second-guess situations, you just have to make connections. I am so lucky to have my group of friends; finding familiar communities is sick. I think if you put yourself out there, you will draw similar people towards you”.

Just to shift gears slightly. There was an interesting question asked in the COMPLEX interview that I felt important to mention. Many artists are asked about relationships and how it affects their songwriting. I am not sure whether Biig Piig is in a relationship now but, when speaking with COMPLEX, she gave an interesting response to the question below:

“You open up about relationships when you are writing—are you happier in a relationship?

It’s great when you’re happy in your relationship, but that doesn’t happen too often. Right now, I’m in a space where I want to see what happens naturally and not pursue being single or in a relationship—just feeling like whatever happens, happens. I’m just chilling. Right now is the right time to be alone. When you’re in a relationship, you don’t always process things right away and so being alone is important when reflecting on what has happened in previous relationships. I think having those thoughts and revisiting those memories is important to process before you dive right into the next thing. When you pressure yourself to be in a relationship, you compromise, and you are forced to give up elements of yourself. I think sometimes people use a relationship as a personality trait, but I have date nights with myself! I pamper myself and watch films. Sometimes friendships can be as influential in relationships”.

PHOTO CREDIT: District Magazine

One of the most original and impressive things about Biig Piig is her sound. There are elements of Rap and Alternative. One cannot distil it down to genres (even though I have sort of done that at the top of the review). Even though she spoke with ACCLAIM a couple of years back (and her sound has evolved), I wanted to bring it in. It seems that a lo-fi sound came quite naturally to Biig Piig:

“Your music is often described as lo-fi or jazz-lounge. Why did you decide to go along that avenue of sound?

So, initially the way that I started making music was when I went to a party that my friend was having after a show. There was a cypher going on and I’d never really seen that happen before. That’s when we were about 16. It felt so good to be able to free flow over those kinds of beats, they were mostly beats that you find online, so we would take the vocals off these old beats and just flow on top of them. Then I started to want to release music that I’d written over these beats and that was before I realized that there were a bunch of other producers up for collaboration. So I would just take them off youtube and put them on SoundCloud with my stuff on top of it. Then a few producers on Soundcloud that I started to find that I really liked the sound of, I just messaged them. Yeah, it just kind of happened that way I guess.

It was just the organic sound that came out?

Yeah, I think it was just something that drew me in and I don’t know what it is about the sound. I think it’s just the way it feels, like there’s not so much going on, there’s a lot of room for thought, but at the same time the emotion of the track is still prominent, you know what I mean, so I feel like that was the thing that drew me in”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Brynley Davies

There is going to be call and demand for a Biig Piig album. Her E.P.s so far have explored different sonic and thematic territories. Coming back to that ACCLAIM interview, we get a sense of how Biig Piig developed and matured across three E.P.s:

“Your 3 EPs seem like perfect examples of your storytelling ability and wearing your heart on your sleeve. There’s Big Fan of the Sesh Vol. 1, A World without Snooze Vol. 2 and then No Place for Patience Vol. 3. Were you always planning on doing three in a story-like way?

Yeah definitely! I mean initially, I’m a person that has a load of ideas and then when it actually comes down to doing it I’m like, “well, we could do that or we could do all these other ideas”, you know what I mean, I’m not very good at putting myself down and actually being like, “nup, I’m sticking to this plan”. So when it came to the 3 EPs, initially I wanted three of them, definitely wanted three of them, because I wanted them to be about myself and the different sides of myself rather than different stages of my life, but it just ended up being that I wrote them at different years and those years were big years in general. I feel like it was probably just the age that I was at and the things that were going on in my life, and it just kind of ended up being a bit of a diary instead of thought out, trying to explain different angles.

Yeah definitely, from listening to them it’s almost like listening to you grow up over the 3 EPS. I think the first one you kind of start off as – maybe hopeless is the wrong word – but maybe with a want to escape, and then number three your coming into yourself and your more self assured, or at least that’s what I got out of it. How much of a role do you think moving from teenagehood to adulthood has on the inspiration for young artists in their music, or at least for you personally?

Yeah, I think it’s huge. From the years of like 14/15/16/17 all the way to 25, I think those years are so important and they’re literally the years that you’ll maybe fall in love or try and understand what that is. They’re the years that you’re just curious about everything, and are just experiencing certain things for the first time. Yeah, those years from maybe 15 to like 20, those years are so transformative. What do you think?”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mélanie Lehmann

I will bring things up-to-date with The Sky Is Bleeding. Following on from the 2019 E.P.s, I feel Biig Piig has developed and progressed even faster and further. 2019 was a very big year for her. When she spoke with DORK in late-2019, she reflected on a busy and transformative year:

“Her first EP ‘Big Fan of The Sesh, Vol. 1’, released last year, was accompanied by a short film that Jess shot herself. “I feel like it’s really important for me, visually, to have everything explained. I don’t know what it is, but when I write tracks, sometimes, I see the video before I see the end of the song. Especially with these three EPs, they were all such important stages in my life that I feel like I need to have those visualised as well.”

Right now, Jess is gearing up for the release of her third EP ‘No Place For Patience’, and it’s an important one for her personally because it reflects all the lessons she has learned in the last few years, often the hard way. “The last two EPs were very much about relationships with other people, and I feel like at the age of 20/21 I’ve realised if you don’t like a situation, as hard as it might be, you have to change it, and that comes with how you see yourself.”

Talking to her about her time growing up it’s clear to see that apart from being an inspiring personality and a wonderful artist, Jess is the kind of friend everyone needs. She will gladly sit and philosophise for hours about the most random ideas (like how speaking different languages might shape your personality) but, most importantly, she will call you out on your bullshit because, most likely, she’s been there. And she’s still learning; another aspect that shines through on her upcoming EP.

“This EP on the surface looks like it might be about a relationship, but it is a relationship with myself. The way that I see myself and maybe that side of me that makes decisions that I can’t stand by. The darker side of yourself, I suppose.”

In her trilogy of EPs, Biig Piig has immortalised all struggles of her teenage years; a process that is both therapeutic and difficult to cope with at times:

“It’s a two-sided thing. In a sense, it helps so much when you write everything down; it’s so therapeutic. You don’t really realise what you’re writing about until you read it after. It’s an escape, and you can evaluate the situation a little bit more. But the other thing would be playing the songs live. Whenever I play tracks that meant something at a dark time, all those feelings come back. So, it feels unresolved sometimes. It’s weird, but when it’s a good show, it’s worth it because you have people in the crowd singing back the same lyrics that tore you apart once and I know I’m not alone in it. They’re helping me heal by just being in the room.”

As far as her plans for 2020 go, Biig Piig is playing it by ear. “I’m figuring it out as I go along. We’ll see how it goes. It completely depends, to be honest, on what people think of the new stuff.” If it’s anything like her previous two EPs, there’s no question number three will be welcomed with open arms. But Jess doesn’t want to jinx it.

“We’ll say a little prayer,” she jokes, but really, there are no prayers needed. With her free-flowing outlook on life and unique take on music, it doesn’t take a psychic to know that we will hear much more of her bilingual raps in the future”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

I did say that I would mention Lava La Rue. The founder of the nine8collective has been instrumental in Biig Piig’s life and story. Coming back to that ACCLAIM interview, the subject of La Rue arose:

“So I know Ava, or Lava La Rue, has played a massive role in igniting your music career. How has your relationship influenced you and your music since she started inviting you to those cyphers?

So when we were friends in college we’d make music sometimes. It was a lot more like we’d play instruments and stuff, it was a great crack. Then I left school, met this fella, and that was really stupid, and then went down a bit of a fucking rabbit hole with it. Then she literally like – I don’t know what I’d do without her at all, we have this relationship where whenever somethings kind of slipping with one or the other we’ll just catch each other, you know what I mean, and she just caught me at that point when it could have just gone so badly and brought me to that cypher. I just feel like she’s changed everything and then also the NiNE8 collective, we started that up, and that was just to have people close and around all the time that are also creatives. She created that space and I think that was just incredible as well. She’s in every part of everything I did at the beginning”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

After such a productive and acclaimed 2019, it must have been a kick in the teeth that the pandemic curtailed the energy and momentum accrued. That said, Biig Piig has done really well in 2020 and 2021! She would have wanted to tour a lot last year and showcase the songs from her recent E.P. Coming back to the our culture interview, Biig Piig spoke about lockdown and what she has been doing during it:

“How have you been during lockdown and how have you passed the time?

Lockdown has been a bit nuts. I moved so many times; it was a really hectic time for me. I was in a really intense relationship that ended during lockdown. We were living together and everything else – that was really intense. Creatively as well, I feel like I went through a period where I couldn’t really write anything and I felt really uninspired. And then after the first lockdown, I started to write a lot more and got really back into the swing of it. It felt so good. I think I’m still trying to process the whole of last year, just because my living situation kept falling apart. So I kept having to move loads and that relationship happened and then now I’m living in LA. I really like it and I’ve got a project that I’m really happy with, so it’s great. But yeah, definitely a very weird time. It almost feels like a dream. I feel like I’m looking back at it with such a hazy view because I don’t feel like time makes any sense. I think last year just feels like a whole… Vortex situation. It’s hard to remember details or anything, it’s nuts. But, passing the time, I watched a lot of really shit TV. I loved Selling Sunset. That really uh [laughs] that really kept me busy for a while. What else? Reading a bit? Reading and drinking, which I’m going to stop doing now. But drinking for the first one took up a lot of my time as well. Um, yeah, I think just staring into the void and days just fleeting… Sorry, I feel like this has taken a dark turn! [laughs] No, it was grand. I feel like I will never take life for granted again, so that’s good. Definitely a learning curve”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK

Let’s get down to reviewing American Beauty. An arpeggio guitar line fuses with skittling beats. It is a nice blend of the riparian and urgent. The Hip-Hop beats and honey glow of the guitar strings are appropriate for a song that has a combination of the sensual and potent. In terms of the vocals, Biig Piig is soothing and almost whispered in her delivery. Projecting a line, leaving a gap and then delivering another line builds up this expectation and sense of emotion. The lyrics have this heady and seductive tone to them. Thanks to the soft and tender vocals combined with the compositional cocktail, the first verse really stands out: “When she talks about it she bites her lip/Taste of chamomile honey we all need/Maybe I want to show you/What it’s like/Baby, you're so pretty we should keep the lights on/Baby, you're so pretty we should keep the lights on”. By the time the chorus comes in, the beats and guitar get hotter and heavier. There is this audible rush and a sense of the lights being turned on – the first verse felt dimly-lit and softer; the chorus is brighter and bolder: “American beauty, you tell me just what you like and ill listen/Whisper it to me/They can’t keep you satisfied but I’ll listen/American beauty, you tell me just what you like and ill listen/Whisper it to me/They can’t keep you satisfied but I’ll listen”. I wonder who the eponymous person is in the song. They do seem to be this very exciting and important person that has our heroine enraptured and spellbound. I love the vocal delivery and the fact that, despite it being soft and low, there is a headiness and electricity.

The second verse intensifies the feeling of desire and allure. Whilst one can get a sense of what the lyrics are about and what inspired them, the central figure is still a mystery. The simple composition provides plenty of weight and emotion - though it is the vocal that, to me, really stands out. Biig Piig explores a relationship that is giving her new powers and promise: “Your hands walk down as she grips my hair/I got superpowers in my fingertips/Maybe I want to show you/What it’s like/Baby, you're so pretty we should keep the lights on”. When the chorus comes back in, it seems to take on new meaning. It might be the case that this person has been misunderstood or not satisfied in the past. This idea that Biig Piig will listen and provide this understanding. Whilst there have been other songs released from The Sky Is Bleeding, the closing track ends the E.P. perfectly. I have been following Biig Piig for a while and how her sound has progressed. If you have not heard the E.P. then do spend some time with it. Every track is brilliant and different. Over the past few years, Biig Piig has really grown as a songwriter. I love what she is putting out and I feel we will hear an album from her fairly soon. I shall wrap things up here. The amazing Biig Piig always produces stunning music. On American Beauty, she is at her most exceptional and confident best.

PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK

Just before rounding up, it is worth talking about the future and how Biig Piig sees it. Returning, once more, to the our culture interview from earlier this year, one get an idea of what she wants to achieve with her music:

“Do you have any goals in terms of where you’d like to get to with your music?

I mean, I really want to get to a place where I can produce myself, because I’m interested to see what that would sound like. And even producing for other artists, I think that would be really, really cool. I just need to understand what my style would be from the producing side of things. So that’s definitely a big goal for me. And then otherwise, I want to just make sure that I keep making music that makes me feel good. I feel like I really don’t want to lose the love for music, and I don’t think I will, but I just hope that every time this like feeling of excitement and release, stays and grows with everything that I make, and the things that I make in the future. So that’s kind of it. Yeah [laughs]”.

Go and stream and investigate the new E.P. The Sky Is Bleeding. In August, it is coming to vinyl. I would urge people to buy it and spend some time with a phenomenal artist. I am not sure whether there will be an album later this year or in 2022. What is clear is that there will be a lot of people excited to see Biig Piig on the stage very soon. I am not sure whether there is anything solid in the diary yet (so keep an eye on the social media channels for more information). I was keen to explore American Beauty, as it is my favourite track from an exceptional E.P. In Biig Piig, we have a wonderful artist who is…