Following up her Summer’s Over EP with TV Girl, that she surprise released a few months ago, Jordana has just announced a new album. Co-produced by Cameron Hale and Jordana, who performed every instrument on the record, Face The Wall is an introspective project dealing with themes such as pandemic isolation, depression, breakups, veganism and faith. “The album title has a few meanings to me,” Jordana Nye explained. “Mostly, it’s about not giving up. The wall can be anything in your way. The album is a sort of reminder to myself that I have to face those things, and I can’t take the easy route and turn around.”

The 21-year-old songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer has also unveiled the cathartic first single, “Catch My Drift,” which addresses sentimental uncertainty. “This song is about going back and forth with your feelings for someone when they make you question whether they are even reciprocated,” she stated. “The song is about realizing you shouldn’t be emotionally dependent on anybody, and that it’s just a waste of energy.” Watch the accompanying video, courtesy of director Tess Lafia, and pre-order the album via Bandcamp below.

Following the release of her striking 2020 album Something To Say To You, Jordana Nye drops a new single in collaboration with LA-based duo Magdalena Bay. “Push Me Away” was produced by her regular collaborator MELVV as well as Jai Wolf. Fed with frustration and unrequited love, the throbbing and dreamy pop track builds up until its grunge-y cathartic finale. Directed by Mag Bae, the accompanying lo-fi slash retro visuals are just as fun and addictive as the track.

Earlier this year, Kansas singer-songwriter Jordana Nye, better known as Jordana, re-released her debut album Classical Notions of Happiness (with a few new tracks) on Grand Jury Music. This extended version was notably coming with “Crunch,” a MELVV-produced track that is already featured in our Best Tracks of 2020. For her upcoming new EP, the 19-year-old artist has decided to leave her bedroom studio, opting instead for fleshed out and full instrumentations. The first single, “I’ll Take It Boring,” was also produced by NYC-based MELVV.

“‘I’ll Take It Boring’ is a song about my experience at a Halloween party which I regretted attending,” she explained. “It’s a song for all the introverts out there, for all the people who feel like blowing off their weekend plans and staying home.”

There is an aesthetic doctrine among many pop purists that encourages musical artists to “get in, get to the good, and get out.” This ideology promotes tight, efficient songwriting that doesn’t make the listener wait for the hook or work hard to enjoy the tune. Rather than wade through searching melodies, amorphous instrumentation, or expansive arrangements, musicians of such a philosophy start their songs with a blast of euphoria that almost immediately captures the attention of its audience. Apologists of Weezer‘s giddy and ultra-catchy Green Album might cite the above approach in their defence of the band’s 28-minute comeback. And in this sense, Wichita-based bedroom-pop artist Jordana wastes no time getting to the good in her punchy new single, “Crunch.”

19-year-old Jordana Nye — recording simply as Jordana — opens the proceedings with a big, overdriven bass-and-drums groove, sounding even more like Danger Mouse producing The Black Keys than the actual Black Keys album that Danger Mouse produced did. Her breathy, youthful-but-practiced voice provides sweet background harmonies, and as we immediately nod our head along to the groove, we soon notice that something feels slightly off — the time signature of this pop song is in 7/4, constantly alternating between a standard 4/4 measure and a truncated 3/4 measure. Smartly, aside from a couple distorted lead guitar solos in the back half of the track, Jordana doesn’t mess too much with the arrangement, allowing us to instead focus on her memorable melodies as they descend (“Now you see me”) and then ascend (“Is it true?”).

According to Ms. Nye, “‘Crunch’ is a feeling of an overbearing want for validation from someone and getting the cold shoulder from them. The song starts out with the confidence in knowing this person could possibly notice you, and ends in anger and frustration seeing that they ignored you.”

Along with a couple other new songs, like her previous single (and ode to/criticism of astrology) “Signs,” Jordana will thankfully include “Crunch” on the upcoming remastered and expanded re-release of her self-produced 2019 debut album, Classical Notions of Happiness, hitting streets March 27 on Grand Jury Music. And with a tour lined up this spring, opening for fellow bedroom-pop cohorts TV Girl, 2020 promises to be a big year for this talented young woman. Watch the POND-directed visuals of “Crunch” and pre-order Classical Notions of Happiness via Bandcamp below.

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