If you’re looking for a new obsession, look no further. For all your whimsical daydreaming or late-night reminiscing, Ivoris has you covered.
It all started when a friend of mine shared “I Wish My Mind Would Shut Up.” Now, I’m usually the one who sends song recs to everyone within an Apple-Music-radius (Spotify users, don’t attack me), so receiving one seemed pretty noteworthy for a mostly one-way musical exchange. It was 1 a.m., I couldn’t fall asleep, and my mind was backflipping to all the conversations I had earlier that day. So against all scientific advice that says you absolutely should not use any electronic device within two hours of bedtime, I whipped out my phone, scrolled through my Messages history, and hit play, wishing for my mind to, indeed, shut up.
It was a fluffy song, and I immediately loved it. Better yet, it worked — I did eventually fall asleep. Perhaps it was the sheer relatability of the lines “Yeah I’m Rapunzel stuck inside my head/No peace in my mind/It goes on and on/Wish I could turn it off and it would shut up,” or the light strum that makes you feel like you’re wandering into a fairytale of dreams, but I was hooked.
Then, for the next week or so, I forgot about it. I’m the type of person who spams the repeat button on certain songs until they get old and then proceed into my next musical era (which proves oddly useful in organizing my life into distinct epochs). At the time, I was in my Fiji Blue phase. But then when the same friend proceeded to send me “Tobias” by Ivoris last week, coincidentally around the time my current phase was wearing out, I traded sad-boy-chill-house vibes for what I’ll dub sweet-girl-sweet-life beats and took a dive down the rabbit hole that is Ivoris.
What began as an innocuous first listen for your average insomniac developed into the soundtrack to my life. Suddenly, her album “My Messy Mind,” in which both “I Wish My Mind Would Shut Up” and “Tobias” are included, was my background to everything: walks in between classes, gym sessions, and even managed to replace Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” that I use to time my showers. In my co-favorite track “Tobias,” Ivoris angelically sings about a naive love, a light pizzicato up against an R&B-type beat that will make your heart swell. The chorus, “So, won’t you be my valentine?/I just wanna spend my time with you/It’s easy to romanticize/When you look as lovely as you do,” is as catchy as it is endearing. If you aren’t in love, this song will make you want to be.
The third track, a collaboration with fellow Australian r.em.edy called “Drive Thru,” is my other recent obsession. It’s a moodier alternative to the dreamy bedroom pop that encapsulates her other tracks, “Bedtime Angel,” “Fairybread & Old Cartoons,” and “Strawberry.” “No, I don’t want a drive-through love, love, love,” the chorus croons, featherlight floating over the heavier connotations the song alludes to — the mishaps with fast-burn romances that we are all too familiar with. A little mix of yearning, distress, and musing, it’s the perfect tune for going in circles pondering your existential crises or a zesty addition to your shower playlist. With a personality of its own, this piece explores taking a chance with that no-strings-attached someone and falling in, no parachute: “’Cause you’re about to let me fall/So what I got feels for you/And when you show love, I’mma follow suit/Now we closer, ‘bout to overshoot/Are you about to let me…?”
Ivoris is splendid, Ivoris is superb, Ivoris is avant-garde. When asked what was her music’s larger purpose in an interview with Record the Resonance, Ivoris replied, “Magnifying moments in time. Songs are like photographs to me,” explaining how she’d like to freeze a single moment in time and recreate its emotions in a song. “My Messy Mind” flawlessly embodies this in its enchanting blend of dreamy indie-pop and R&B storytelling. Her music screams for your attention, but in a natural “you know you’ll find yourself here” and not in a “LOOK AT ME” type of way. It’s different from the albums from my other eras, one that doesn’t play at the wild ups and downs but rather manifests the beauty found in the happy median — simple everyday love and everyday whims. It’s beautifully cinematic and timeless.
