Work Wife share new single ‘Plastic Windows’
The second release from Brooklyn-based indie artist Work Wife (solo project of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Meredith Lampe), ‘Plastic Windows’ is a catchy lo-fi indie pop tune diving into a far darker matter: the sensations and images that rise up at the beginning of a panic attack. The idea came to songwriter/engineer Lampe when she was walking through a neighborhood of Seattle called Madison Valley.
She says: "It was one of those beating-back-your-anxiety-with-a-stick kind of walks, where you go outside hoping to quell a rising sense of anxiousness before it builds up too much. I passed a house under construction that had one of those temporary plastic coverings over the windows, and the wind was blowing against it and it was straining at the points where it was taped to the house. I love stumbling upon objects or scenarios that provide a really pointed visual metaphor for an intense feeling that you're trying to describe in a song--this was one of those times. In "Plastic Windows,: I describe my panic disorder using a couple different metaphors, and the writing process of finding these concise little pictures that describe my feelings does a lot to help me to cope in the moment. For some reason, being able to convert my formless feelings into physical and visual things is comforting, perhaps because it allows me to explain them to other people in a way I know they'll understand immediately.
“As I was working on production for the track I took some inspiration from the 2020 Bartees Strange album where he melds a bunch of different genres. The first Work Wife single was more electronic / drum-machine leaning and I wanted to show some versatility and make something a little more guitar-focused and beachy. I'd been listening to a lot of Faye Webster and Mac Demarco at the time, so I tried to bring in some more chorus effects and detuned synth kind of stuff to give it that vibe. As a newer producer I'm also using this project to sort of prove to myself that I can make different styles of music and still be really happy with the result. I wanted it to feel like a hot day in a small empty beach town, when you can't see the ocean yet but you know you're near the water only by the smell and the way the vapor in the air feels on your body--that's what anxiety feels like to me, this thing that you can sense coming closer without really being able to put into words how you know.
“My bandmate in Colatura, Digo Best, has been a really great producer/mentor to me since I started this project. I'm too picky to let someone fully produce my tracks so I end up doing a lot of it on my own. Digo sends over ideas and feedback, and he's a big tone snob (in the best way) so he makes sure all the parts i'm playing have the right vibe. I got my pal Daryl Cozzi, who actually used to be my drum teacher when I first moved to the city, to write and record the drum part. I'm obsessed with Daryl's groove -- he's in a few country rock projects and I love that his drum parts have a bit of that influence. I hadn't bought a bass yet when I was recording this so my boyfriend Justin Buschardt wrote and recorded the bass part for me. The synths are all of these Roland software clones that I've been using a lot lately, they're supposed to be pretty authentic replicas of the physical Junos they're emulating. And the horns I added super last minute but am so into -- I'm excited to keep messing around with them in new music going forward."
Work Wife · Plastic Windows
Photo credit: Justin Buschardt
