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Listen to NYC Singer-Songwriter Katie Von Schleicher’s Beautifully Chaotic Ballad “Sell It Back”

Brooklyn singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Katie von Schleicher specializes in adept, playful, ambitiously arranged indie rock that will appeal to fans of the adventurous, earworm-filled music of artists like Big Thief or Eleanor Friedberger. There’s an addictive, irreverent energy to the three singles from Schleicher’s upcoming self-produced (third) solo album, Shitty Hits–due out July 28 via Ba Da Bing Records–but they cover a great deal of stylistic ground, from bright, lazy indie-rock comfort food like “Paranoia” to the dreamier, honky-tonk baroque pop of  “Life’s a Lie.”

Today’s brand-new “Sell It Back” is simultaneously her most unusual and beautiful release to date: a stark, mournful ballad driven by the tension between the song’s gently seething synths, surges of noisy, overdriven guitar and ambient electroacoustic detritus. The song, by von Schleicher’s account, is about coming into her own as an artist and person: “I’m vulnerable, asking ‘Do I hold my life?’ But the lyrics affirm a confidence I’ve just spent an album searching for, and they’ll guide me into the next one.” The song’s confident, bold textures mimic the significance of the text perfectly, then; von Schleicher is not a talent to be ignored, and Shitty Hits seems poised to be a diverse, unambiguous statement of purpose.

If you like von Schleicher’s solo music, her work with her other band Wilder Maker,  is equally worth your time; their mellow, snaking new “New Streets”/”Only Child” 7″ for Saddle Creek is one of the underrated New York indie rock gems of this year so far.

Listen to “Sell it Back” below.

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/328449232&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true