The past few days I’ve been thinking a lot about Kate McKinnion’s closing comment from last week’s SNL skit “What Still Works?” At the closing of the bit, McKinnon looks kindly into the camera lens and remarks, “Stay strong. Or weak. Weak is a great option, too.” For me, it wasn’t a statement of surrender, but an admission that sometimes retreating from the world and sorting things out is the best way forward. For that matter, I’m not sure about you, but when I’m feeling blue, few things complement my mood or provide a balm like a good, melancholy song.

Annie Leeth’s new single “Away Again” offers the kind of wispy bedroom pop that’s perfect for those days when all you really want is to burrow under your blanket. Over a backing track of swelling synthesizers and abstract violin textures, Leeth sings about coping with an inexplicable sadness. Periodically, a reverberating woodblock provides a restless counterweight to the song like a shining beacon cutting through a murky fog. As the track draws to its conclusion, Leeth steps beyond her dejection and whisper-sings the possibility of new beginnings: “And when you find a friend / Sail away, sail away again.”

Leeth recently relocated to Atlanta from Athens after cutting her teeth as a session violinist and producer at Chase Park Transduction. Now working as the house engineer at Maze Studios under the tutelage of producer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Washed Out), she’s been busy adjusting to life in a new city. Despite embracing her new opportunities, however, it’s been a hard transition. Ultimately, it was the tension between her sadness and the reality around her that inspired Leeth to write the single.

“‘Away Again’ is a song that I wrote when I was first adjusting to life in Atlanta,” she explains. “I felt like I was missing something despite everything being correct on paper, and [I] felt a lot of guilt because of that. So, the lyrics deal with overcoming that feeling of sadness that still happens despite everything still being ‘right.’ Even though ‘right’ is so very far from how everything is right now, I think the message of coping and overcoming very much pertains to today’s world.”

If you’re having a day, or a week, or a year where things just aren’t working out, do yourself a solid and let yourself be swept awat by Leeth’s dreamy abyss of low-fi perfection.

Listen below.

More Info
Web: annieleeth.com
Facebook: @annieleethmusic
Instagram: @annie.leeth