For Spill Tab, aka LA-based guitarist, songwriter and producer Claire Chicha, expressing your entire scope of herself by way of her lo-fi music is as pure as respiratory. “I write in French and English, I wish to characterize my full id inside my music and singing in each, appears like the easiest way to try this,” Chica explains.

The cultural touchstones that she will be able to draw on for this id are as broad as they’re various. The kid of a French-Algerian composer father and Korean pianist mom, Chica was uncovered to jazz and classical music whereas spending time at her dad and mom’ post-production studio in between strikes internationally.

This globetrotting expertise meant she lived in Bangkok and Paris earlier than touchdown within the States, pursuing research at New York College and a artistic profession rooted in California all through nearly all of her adolescence.

Early on in her childhood, Chicha picked up guitar whereas creating a particular sound mixing raw-edged sonic masterpieces with anthemic choruses. It’s a sound that’s closely influenced by the place she now calls house, although she nonetheless clearly has the need to see and expertise much more of the world.

“Los Angeles needs to be my favourite as a result of most of my favourite individuals are right here, however I might like to reside in Paris or Seoul sooner or later. As a child, the shifting wasn’t actually my selection, however as an grownup, every transfer was seeking discovering the precise metropolis for what I used to be in search of at that particular time.”

Spill The Tea

Chica’s preliminary foray into the music trade was on the opposite facet of the fence, as an A&R intern, however started releasing her layered, lo-fi bed room pop beneath the Spill Tab monicker shortly earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic.

She gained traction over the bizarre interval that adopted, releasing a trio of EP’s (Oatmilk, Bonnie and Klepto) over the next three years that included attention-grabbing and attention-grabbing collaborations with the likes of Metronomy, Matilda Mann, Gus Dapperton, and Tommy Genesis.

Audiences began to catch on to Spill Tab in a giant method when Chica was one of many openers on Sabrina Carpenter’s Emails I Can’t Ship tour in 2023, however now lastly 27-year-old is able to launch her first full-length album, Angie.

The document is a becoming summation of Chica’s development as an artist, as evidenced by lead single Assis.

“The manufacturing feels just like the stitching between a 50s Italian movie soundtrack and psychedelic rock,” Chica explains of the monitor. “The music is about watching somebody you like draw back from you in sluggish movement. You attempt to reconcile the attractive, tender moments with the bitter ones, as a result of finally you need nobody else.”

Angie is launched on French label As a result of Music, and displays a need on Chica’s half to discover extra of the European music scene within the coming years. If the timeless depth of her musical expression throughout the albums 12 tracks are something to go by, she’ll discover loads of new inspiration there – to go alongside her catchy basslines and sick guitar hooks.

Glitchy and free-spirited opener Pink Lemonade typifies this breadth of curiosity. Co-produced with apob [producer Aaron Paul O’Brien] alongside Mikey Freedom Hart [Taylor Swift, Empress Of] it sees Spill Tab getting into the world of hyperpop adopted by a drop into a very completely different transition with its distorted guitar offering some turbulence by way of her musical flight with a clean touchdown on the remainder of the album.

“That and Angie had been the primary two songs that made me really feel like I lastly needed to make a full-length undertaking,” Chica explains. “They each cradle completely different sides of the center on the spectrum of natural to digital which I actually love. Creating extra songs that match on this world was probably the most thrilling factor to me. If Pink Lemonade and Angie are grandma and grandpa, the remainder of the album tracks are all of the nieces and nephews.”

Classical Fuel

As she put the album collectively, the affect of Bon Iver and Fleetwood Mac additionally noticed Chica taking new inspiration in a way more conventional kind of guitar – the nylon-string. It’s grow to be a key plank to her sound.

“I really feel like as of current I’ve been actually having fun with taking part in nylon,” she enthuses. “I really like tuning all of the strings to completely different locations and experimenting, I really like the concept that after I decide up that guitar once more, it’s in a very completely different tuning, and it’s virtually like I don’t know the best way to play it anymore. It opens up a complete new world.”

“I picked up the guitar after I was 12 and discovered my favourite Paramore and Coldplay songs by trying up the tabs on-line, and I feel this independence and autonomy made me adore it all of the extra. I began writing songs round that point as properly”

One other music that showcases Chica’s love of an euphoric guitar solo is the monitor, De Guerre a headbanging and genre-bending kaleidoscope right into a messy night time out.

“De Guerre is my private soundtrack to a chaotic night time out in town,” she explains. “Dancing, sweating, going completely feral, indulging in my vices, ignoring each consequence, and simply being in my physique. Mikey Freedom Coronary heart performed most of the riffy loud guitar elements, and Apob processed the shit out of it to make it sound like the fantastic factor it’s now.”

Visible Language

However Angie is about extra than simply the audio – the album additionally sports activities an attention-grabbing cowl from artist Alex Rizik, which options hidden ‘Easter eggs’ tied to the album’s songs.

“Not solely is [Rizk] an unbelievable painter with such a singular eye, however I felt so listened to and supported by her all through the entire strategy of us collaborating on how we needed the ultimate varieties to really feel,” Chica says. “The album cowl artwork is supposed to really feel busy and loopy and hectic, but additionally centered and current.”

Grief was a serious theme within the album, reflecting on these we lose that will nonetheless be alive or have handed – an innate sense of what’s to return when a chapter with somebody closes. The album was made whereas Chica processed loss throughout numerous eras of her life.

“I discovered love then misplaced it, then discovered it once more in friendships and relationships alike…I discover myself referencing the physique quite a bit, I feel as a result of I carry most of my feelings in my intestine and my jaw,” she explains. “However usually, I really like writing in regards to the corporal sensations of affection and loss, so that may be a sample I discover that happens typically on this undertaking.”

For Chica, daybreak is a particular time of the day that helps her give attention to the blended feelings that grief can carry – it’s a music that informs one of many albums standouts, Morning Dew.

“That’s the oldest music on the album, it’s additionally probably the most tender to me,” she admits. “I wrote it about lacking somebody that’s handed on, and people moments actually early within the mornings when it’s chilly and moist exterior, and also you consider them and surprise when the following time it’s that you simply’ll meet once more.”

This spring, Spill Tab heads throughout the ocean to tour the UK and Europe, however the grief and loss that has affected her hometown continues to be near her ideas, consequently, she’s suggesting that followers help her by contemplating a donation to the LA Hearth Division Basis, which you’ll discover on the hyperlink right here.