London-hailed musician Seraphina Simone returns with the moving new double single “Skin”. Evoking an array of emotions, the single fuses alt-pop with a tenderness that makes Seraphina Simone an artist that knows exactly how to capture your heart.
With intricate, synth-echoed grooves, “Skin” is a brooding track brimming with lust-filled vocals. Breaking down the expectations of sexuality and desire, the single captures the torment of feeling trapped within the exploration of how we should be rather than what we want to be. Its soothing sounds are calming, in a way that makes you feel like you’re being carried through said torment and into endless fields of freedom. Underlined with a slow-burning whir, “Skin” is a single wrapped in Simone’s elegance and sheer beauty.
“It’s about sex and desire,” explains Simone. “It ties into a book I was reading about a devout woman in Bible Belt America who marries young for duty, and then falls for someone else in her 40s and starts an affair. The whole book was about the contradiction between her emotions and her upbringing, how what her body and heart were telling her was right was seen as sinful. I think as women we’re often taught to tame our desires, to make them fit into something that is palatable and acceptable for the male gaze or an outdated expectation of how a woman should behave, and by doing that we lobotomise a part of ourselves. ‘Skin’ is about that inner conflict.”
Paired with the minimalistic alt-pop track “Blue Devil”, the single showcases the more pop-leaning side to Simone’s artistry. Drawing a parallel with the talents of Lianne La Havas, “Blue Devil” is drenched in captivating melodies and invigorating euphoria. Highlighting her soft, warm vocals, the track evokes a brooding nature. Written following her previous single “O M D”, the track continues the same narrative. She explains further: “It’s about how depression can turn someone into a total asshole! How their emotional numbness can feel cruel, and you feel guilty at hating them for it when you know it’s not really their fault. I was so frustrated at not being able to call him out on his shit in the way I would with someone who wasn’t suffering, and felt like such a bitch for feeling that way.”
Sometimes it takes a few listens of a release to truly make you feel something, but Simone’s work has the ability to hit you instantaneously. Her vocals are dreamy, and paired with a lush backdrop of melancholia this release draws upon inner emotions to document the trials and tribulations of a young woman in these tormenting years.
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