Q&A: The Hopelessly Romantic Summer’s Dream Pop Soundtrack, Chelsea Jade Releases ‘Soft Spot’
IN AN AMALGAM OF EMOTIONS ELICITED FROM — Chelsea Jade’s Soft Spot, the album is reminiscent of wanting to devote yourself to someone but holding back due to cynicism; the type of neediness that can never be met due to an inherent distrust you just can’t shake. The metaphorical rose-tinted glasses of a yearning desperation to be loved but rejecting the notion in the end is a quasi-lament of the sweet, heady feelings of love and desire.
“Music is a good vessel for all ideas,” Jade said, reflecting on her role within the creative vehicle of music.
With an emotion that flows naturally from her unique, sensuous vocals, the South African artist’s sound is reminiscent of artists such as Blood Orange, Little Dragon, and Wet, while feeling as if you’re the main character in a dimly lit dance hall listening to Raveena’s yearning and Steve Lacy’s masked cynicism. Jade’s lyrics are cynical and wounded, and coupled with dreamy sighs and semi-erotic yips, songs like “Big Spill” and “Good Taste” are daring, sultry, and unwittingly seductive.
Her lyricism comes from intensive songwriting camps in New Zealand, where songwriting as a job is a relatively new idea. “I didn’t know it existed as a separate job until I moved to Los Angeles,” Jade explained. She gravitated towards music in New Zealand and chose to pursue it even though she was in art school. The camps combined all of the elements of art school — visual, audio, performance — but in a more creatively appealing package. “It was a strategic kind of stimulation, these songwriting camps, so that you didn’t have to work alone in your bedroom.”
Jade is an observer, using music to debrief about her musings afterward. By remaining on the peripheral, her sound is distinctive and chalk full of a plethora of intrinsic metaphor — a modern-day rumination on her role within a landscape of love.
Read below to learn more about Soft Spot, Jade’s take on love, and her experience with collaboration.
LUNA: Congrats on the new album! Listening to your music reminds me of when I yearned to be loved and made me nostalgic for that intense feeling of caring about someone.
JADE: Thank you! I’m actually quite the cynic, so I wanted to juxtapose this kind of pop with deeply cynical lyrics to reflect my disposition.
LUNA: Well, you’re quite the cynical hopeless romantic. Out of curiosity, what does love feel like to you?
JADE: Ultra-friendship. It’s really feeling warmed by the thought of somebody else feeling good about themselves. Love is a circumference — that when you're in that space, you can be your absolute self. I don’t care about anything else. Love is so intimate that it cannot be parlayed into most mediums.
Love is being an ally on someone else’s team, equally critical as supportive. When I was younger, I didn’t necessarily realize that you cannot be everything to one person. After the initial glamor of falling in love, you begin to realize that. Your intimacy with this person supersedes any excitement that you could find elsewhere. It’s a language that means nothing until you can feel it. It also helps to be with someone kind and generous — it provides a different speculative.
LUNA: What role does love play in your work?
JADE: In my life, I am currently in love. But in terms of music, it’s the core of every complicated feeling: physical, emotional, and mental. It’s the nucleus of everything. My songs try really hard to undermine positivity with relentless questioning.
LUNA: Did you always have an affinity for both singing and songwriting, or was gelling them in tandem something you did not expect?
JADE: I’m not a great singer. I mean, I’ve been in choirs, but I’ve never been a great singer. I like my voice, but technically I’m not strong. I have a unique voice, and I like the idea that I can make pop songs without the typical belting. In writing, you want to see it become what it is designed to be, and by the time I had written an album worth of songs, I would continuously be left without anyone to sing them, so I did because I wanted it in the public space.
LUNA: You’ve collaborated with extremely well-known artists, including The Chainsmokers, Wet, and Lorde. How have these experiences impacted your sound and creative process?
JADE: The people that come to mind that I continually revisit are Feist, Tunnel Vision, and Little Dragon. If I’m doing my job, which is to say that I enjoy being invited in to participate, everyone has a hand. It’s hard to say because I accept the magic for what it is. Art isn’t necessarily perfection — it’s about ideas. There’s an artful space in pop that I like working within.
LUNA: What do you want people to take away from your art?
JADE: I hope that it makes people feel as if they’re in good company. This record is for when you’re wearing headphones on the transit and lost in thought; it’s for that almost cinematic feeling of walking around in the summer night.
LUNA: I enjoy the unique crevice of dream pop that you fit in. Each one of your songs is distinctive and is definitely what I would prefer to dance to on a night out.
JADE: Thank you! We’re actually throwing a release party, and I’m excited to see everyone dance to my music and just enjoy themselves. It will feel surreal. I also designed my record! I can’t wait to feel the accomplishment once I have a physical copy in hand. I love a tangible object.
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