We are happy to premiere Quelle Rox’s new single “Space Parade”. Based in Brooklyn and of Puerto Rican and Cuban origin, Quelle has spent the last couple of years putting out suggestive stand-alone singles. Now, she is getting ready to take it to the next level and release her debut EP, tentatively out by the end of the year. Her music is decidedly electronic and psychedelic, though Quelle also takes her cues from genres as disparate as trap or classic rock – a bombastic guitar line might suddenly come out of nowhere and eclipse an 808-type beat.

Quelle Rox’s music has been overtly sexual and blunt in the past – take her August single “Miss Ya Body”, where she explicitly reversed the male gaze –, but her new single “Space Parade” represents a step back of sorts in that regard. Rather like her early single “Cosmic Gloom”, “Space Parade” is a trippier and more subdued affair, built upon an inviting bassline asking you to just get carried away and find peace in our surroundings. “Space Parade” is the kind of song you want to listen to at night-time – it comes as no surprise that it was written after a mind-expanding experience at a music festival. The trance Quelle Rox puts you in is so powerful that it’s even hard to miss that she suddenly starts singing in Spanish, manifesting the multi-layered identity that she has carefully constructed throughout her short career.

Hailing from Brooklyn, Quelle Rox is a bedroom producer crafting lo-fi and softly psychedelic ruminations. Brimming with bittersweetness and sensuality, her suave fragments of life recall the melding colours of a kaleidoscope, when the hues get both fascinating and disorienting, colourful and blinding. Produced by Kofi Bae and Identite Crisis, her new offering plays once again with these contrasts.

On “Rollercoaster of a Ride,” that we’re very happy to premiere today, Quelle Rox addresses depression, this particular moment when the straw breaks the camel’s back and when your nerves win out. “I made the song a while back when I saw a happy couple on the subway and started crying on the subway,” she explains. “So I went home and wrote this song. It’s about anxiety / depression and not wanting to go outside due to overwhelming reality of life (which is oddly relevant to these times).”

With lyrics such as “I need a vacation / just from this life,” the track is indeed timely. When you thought that 2019 was tough, 2020 has a flavour of apocalypse. The sultry atmosphere and the lyrical guitar solo express this general exasperation, this need to throw everything and to start again from scratch. Hopefully, like many other artists, Quelle Rox challenges herself during the quarantine. During her free time, she decided to create a fuzzy, DIY lyric video to accompany the track. Take your ticket for an emotional ride below and stream the track in our playlist Best Tracks of 2020.

From her 300 sq. ft. room in Brooklyn, DIY producer Raquelle composes lo-fi sonic dreamscapes as Quelle Rox. One year out from her debut self-released track, “Dream Daisies,” Quelle Rox is back with another bittersweet summer dream: the shimmering, contemplative “Cosmic Gloom.”

The track starts out strong with a chilled-out hi-hat beat and a sparkling, 80s-inspired synth as its rhythmic backbone. It fills in with a subtle, funky bassline and Quelle Rox’s smooth, gorgeous croon. Her vocals are touched with just enough reverb to create an atmospheric vibe, but they’re grounded enough that the message comes through loud and clear: “My loneliness is more comforting than your cold, It’s getting old, it’s getting old, it’s getting old”.

The lyrics paint a series of nostalgic images — smoking a cigarette on the stoop, singing a plea of salvation to the birds flying by, a lonely woman getting high to forget her loss — that call to mind Ultraviolence-era Lana del Rey in the best way.

On this brand new release, Quelle Rox excels not only as a songwriter and storyteller but also as a recording engineer and producer. Production-wise, the track is so tight and cleanly composed that it’s almost hard to believe it was self-recorded and produced (with assistance from Huck); a fact that makes the DIY producer’s skill additionally impressive. It’s a track that would sound equally at home on a homemade breakup mix spinning on a tape deck as it would pumping through the aux cord on a curated Spotify playlist.

HighClouds is honoured to bring you an exclusive premiere of “Cosmic Gloom” before it goes live everywhere tomorrow. Listen below.