New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Indie pop artist awfultune (Layla Eden) has been taking listeners on a musical rainbow themed journey of, as she explains, "my own experience in the LGBTQ+ community as a trans woman/artist, and what that means not only to my fellow peers, but more importantly what it represents to me." Today, March 11, she's releasing the latest in the series, "wild honey," via AWAL. The deeply personal song-mixed by Tony Esterly and mastered by John Greenham (Billie Eilish, girl in red, K.Flay)-is being released in conjunction with a poignant and impactful visual shot by Shervin Lainez (Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Tame Impala).
"'wild honey' serves as the last color of the rainbow, purple," Eden explains. "Purple hues for me represent vulnerability. This track is very personal and has a very beautiful message within it; ['wild honey'] takes you from the beginning of feeling worthless and carries you through the chorus with powerful affirmations of self love. Taken from real life experiences, this mirrors exactly what I went through in my own transformation. Finally feeling secure, I discover that I AM all of these positive things--without a man having to tell me that. This is a healing track and completely encapsulates the meaning of the album as a whole. I hope this song resonates with people who have ever found themselves in a situation where they have placed too much of their value on someone else."
While rife with reverie and emotional complexity, an awfultune original prides itself on its minimalism. For Eden, the narrative is usually upfront and center. A dazzling emblem of this story-centric ideal is her impassioned, quintessential offering of 2019 "I Met
Sarah In The Bathroom," which was recently certified gold in Canada and is just shy of certification in the U.S. More rooted in emotional truth than reality,
Sarah represents Layla's bolder, uninhibited alter ego. More than anything, it is a love letter to herself. Now having amassed over 175 million streams on YouTube and Spotify, the track is a thrilling culmination of her story so far. Her next full-length collection is set to be released in the coming months.
Born and bred in upstate New York, Eden's musical evolution is intrinsically entwined with her own adapting identity. From plaintive to sweetly serene, her chromatic catalog of dreamlike compositions has succinctly echoed her transition from male to female—becoming who she's always been. She is both an austere champion of the LGBTQ+ community and a perennial advocate for anyone who's simply ever felt alone or estranged from themselves.
Floating a few covers through the SoundCloud stratosphere circa 2017, Eden promptly adorned herself with the awfultune moniker, on account of her belief that her efforts would fall on deaf ears. Wrong she was. She now touts over 350 million streams globally-officially evolving out of indie bedroom-pop obscurity.
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