Review: Joy Autumn "Cozy Love" EP
Five years ago, Joy Autumn made a run at being a professional singer/songwriter. Her first EP, “midnight,” had garnered some unexpected attention. She decided it was time to “do it right,” by moving to LA and finding a producer to take her songs to the next level - the whole shebang. But it didn’t work out. One producer told her she needed to sound more like Katie Perry. Another said they wanted to duct tape her mouth closed for having so many opinions on how her songs should sound. It was very discouraging and when the pandemic happened, well, that was that - she came home to Olympia. She started working on music on her own terms by returning to the bedroom she grew up in and trying again.
Earlier in 2023, she released an EP of calming, moody explorations of Nirvana songs. “Come As You Are: A Tribute To Nirvana In Olympia,” was a tribute to the biggest name to come out of the PNW since Hendrix, but made no attempt to reference the basic Nirvana formula. There was no quiet, loud, quiet; it was just the quiet. These recordings showed that if you stripped the songs of their original sound, energy, and, well, volume there was still something there. No doubt Kurt knew how to write a song, but they could be as easily whispered as yelled.
But as Joy was recording this tribute album, she was also working on her own songs. She produced these new songs largely by herself, with some help from Bay Area producer and violinist Anton Patzner. The result was her next album “Rainy Sunday.” Joy Autumn’s new offering brings something more to the table than an exploration of Nirvana’s style reinvented. Namely, it brings her.
Musically, these songs have more going on while still feeling like the Nirvana tribute EP (not surprising they were produced in the same timeframe). However, the songs Joy wrote have more moods and feelings to offer to a rainy day of listening. And that was 100% the sound of this EP: The Pacific North - Wet. The album art sets the tone: sitting comfy at the window inside, while the world is wet outside with Hues of soft green and hints of blue.
The first track “Cozy Love” is a pure call for love. Not the fireworks, not the funny come on lines as you navigate a bar or dating app, but the comfort of love. The song is not unhappy, but expresses the unfulfilled; “will you love me that?” she asks in the understated chorus before she just… hums to you. This is not someone who has what they are looking for, but good on them for having the words to say what they are after. Nothing much. Just the inclusion of a lover in the morning routine and in evenings of Coltrane, Gary Grant and warm baths. It’s not asking for the world. The spaced-out piano twinkling, vinyl hiss and light synth drums are the epitome of the meme of the girl studying to lo-fi music. And to her credit, Joy just lets you sit in this mood without surprises or big moments in the song. You end up just wanting that cozy love for her, if not for yourself (if you’re not so lucky).
The second song on the album is “The Other side”. It is a call from one of the failed attempts at cozy love, a break-up song, maybe a year after the relationship’s demise. You can hear that the ending of the relationship was not nothing, but that time heals all and a little bit of perspective has allowed our narrator to see that getting past this point is going to add to her story. This wasn’t the one for her, and now she has some time to be on her own and begin creating a bigger story.
“Monster” seems to be a sibling song to the hit “I Will Survive.” Many people date and fall in love with, well, monstrous people. It usually takes separation to see that. Unlike the previous song, the singer here was the dumpee and dude has come back. Stepping away and seeing this guy with neutral eyes, she can see this guy isn’t worth her previous attention. There’s an understanding that he is damaged goods and knowing this, she isn’t going to give him a second chance. It has one of the meanest, though smallest lines in a song: “You’re a monster… just like your father”. It has no context within the song and I just imagine it was extremely personal, a secret line for one person to hear with defensiveness. Ouch. This song builds its competent arrangement without the sharp edges that defines all of these records, but the outro is nothing but a party. It is the most upbeat this moody set of recordings has to offer, and just lets the listener know that bae is doing just fine without dude.
The lead single of this EP is the amazingly good “Beautiful,” a classically written and produced piano ballad with a keen eye on pop sensibly. No part of the arrangement was mishandled, no part of the song unneeded, nothing too long or too short. It might have come off as too perfect, if not for the daring approach to the song. Where “Monster” finds Joy defiant and confident, this is the singer we see on the album cover with her forehead on a window pane - girl is in a funk. Things aren’t going right; the singer isn’t feeling great and has withdrawn. Joy doesn’t seem to be an overly personal songwriter, but seems to write narratives of the common human experience. We aren’t getting to know her, we are catching a bit of her story and partaking in the emotions we all share. Some songwriters offer a self-portrait and some offer a mirror. There are homeruns and swing-and-a-miss in both styles, and Joy definitely does the universal story very well.
But, with “Beautiful,” I’ve found a bit deeper look into more complex emotions people feel and maybe got a peek at where she is. It’s a very relatable story; she is living life in a bit of a blah, things aren’t going great and she is self-isolating. But with the vulnerable chorus she softly says “I tell myself, I tell myself; I’m beautiful.” There is a need for positive self-talk. We need to give ourselves that sometimes. Post-its on the mirror, memes with curvy font in front of a landscape on the socials.
What Joy adds is the worth, the value, the comfort she is giving herself in relation to accepting failure. “I’m beautiful… when nothing goes my way.” The song is clear that things are not working out and she is having a hard time re-adjusting to her expectations for life. “Oh, what a curse to have a dream,” she smartly sings. Every verse continues to paint the disappointments, the failure, the slowness of the life we’ve accepted rather than wanted. Then she weakly sings “I try to tell myself I’m beautiful.”
In the pop music world, this song would not be weakly sung. If this song was produced in LA with a slick producer, it might start vulnerable, but the chorus would explode and everyone would sing along. It’d bring people up and inspire. I can hear Pink having a hit. I’m sure Katy Perry and her producers would have made it a banger. But in Joy’s voice, it is not the image of ourselves we want to be. It is us as we are.