New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Today singer, writer, and rapper Dessa released "Bombs Away," the second installment of her new monthly single series IDES. "'Bombs Away' is about a feeling of surrender, leaning in and letting go," Dessa says "As a control enthusiast, uncertainty and ambiguity unsettle me. But this past year wasn't designed to cater to our preferences. I recorded the demo for this one in Minneapolis, in the middle of a very hard 2020."
IDES is the product of collaborations between artists working from their home studios across the country, trading sound files, snapshots, and voice memos. In a world without touring, Dessa says, the song series is designed to deliver music in regular installments - new art to look forward to every month. The title of the series nods to the ancient Roman calendar, ides being a day that falls roughly in the middle of each month.
Independent of IDES, Dessa recently released the song "Who's Yellen Now?," a Hamilton-style ode to the U.S.'s first female Treasury Secretary. When Joe Biden announced
Janet Yellen as his pick for Secretary of the Treasury, he joked that Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel
Miranda should write a musical about her. Public radio show Marketplace took the baton from there and asked Dessa (who was a contributor to The Hamilton Mixtape) to think about what that might sound like. "Who's Yellen Now?" was born, and
Janet Yellen herself has recognized the track, tweeting "your tune is money."
Dessa has made a career of bucking genres and defying expectations-she's performed at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, co-composed for a 100-voice choir, contributed a song to the "RBG" documentary soundtrack, appeared on the Billboard charts as a solo artist and a member of the Doomtree hip hop collective. She's written for The New York Times and
National Geographic Traveler, presented a TED talk with more than 2 million views, and in 2018 published a memoir titled My Own Devices. Her most recent full-length record Sound the Bells was recorded live with the GRAMMY award winning Minnesota Orchestra. The LA Times wrote that Dessa "sounds like no one else," while The Utne Reader called her a "one-woman powerhouse." On the stage and on the page her style is defined by ferocity, wit, tenderness, and candor.
The BBC recently announced that Dessa will host their new series on science and human behavior, Deeply Human. The project is a collaboration between the BBC, American Public Media, and iHeartRadio. It will air on the BBC World Service and be available as a podcast on all major platforms. The first season-12 episodes in total-chases down answers to questions like, "Why do we get Deja Vu?" "Why are we attracted to symmetrical faces?" and "Why do we listen to sad music?". The show features surprisingly intimate interviews with leading scientists and researchers, presented in Dessa's funny, writerly style. Available on all platforms March 8th.
The third IDES single will drop on March 15, 2021.
