Words by Paige Daniel
“I saw her in the rightest way —” these were the first words that introduced the world to the voice of Gigi Perez. The opening lyric of her breakout single “Sailor Song,” having catapulted across the internet just one summer ago, perfectly captures the succinct, emotion-driven tone that would define her music to come. Now, just a year later, Perez has debuted an entire album At the Beach, In Every Life, full of lyricism just as striking and simple. She is also soon to open for folk powerhouse Hozier — cementing herself as more than just a viral sensation trying to ride their fifteen-minute wave, but instead as an established and powerful name to watch in the indie folk scene.
Perez’ power is in her seamless ability to cut to the bone of a subject, description, or feeling. She tackles complex matters, with topics like grief and yearning serving as the driving forces behind the album’s overall tone. Furthermore, she explores these topics with a crooning, soulful voice that can range from the low register of “Sailor Song” to the higher notes found in “Chemistry” — a song that explores the infrequent, frightening happenstance of experiencing a raw connection with someone.
And while Perez certainly attempts to showcase range on the album—moving from the lyricless soundscape of “Survivor’s Guilt,” which incorporates samples of what sounds like dragging metal as well as voice recordings from her sister who passed during the pandemic (such recordings are scattered across many songs on the record), to the autotuned, more experimental “Twister” — she remains strongest in her simple, stripped-back guitar tracks, where her lyrics are left to carry the emotional weight.
In a personal favorite, “Fable,” the lyrics are so cutting and demonstrative of fundamental truth, you could almost drop the strong strums of the background guitar and let it roll across you as poetry:
“Fable and truth,
direct me to someone who gives me the juice,
and new rules.
Someone to tell me we’re not born to be mules in this.
Everything it contradicts.”
The backbone of the album seems to be the love, loss, and heartbreak Gigi feels both over and in spite of the loss of her sister; you can feel it in every track if not most lyrics. I think the uniqueness of this experience, this bond and how death transformed it, lends itself to the album’s brutal simplicity. There isn’t much flourish to Perez’ words, instead resonating most when she cuts to a truth. At the Beach, In Every Life is full of goodbyes, worship, nostalgia and a siren-like quality to its sound, but a hidden hope weaves through its tracks: we will find something to cling to as these emotions try to pull us under and that’s what it’s really all about.
Loudspeaker Collective 