NYC-based artist Jennie Vee has been catching the eye of everyone from Courtney Love, who she played bass for and Lana Del Rey, who she toured with last May, and recently released her second EP, Spying. With a cavernous reverb-like sound of subtly twitching twin guitars and airy percussive hits, Jennie Vee’s elegantly longing vocals hang in the air with a sense of heartbreak, but never morose. These are pop songs that hark back to an age of Echo and The Bunnymen, Field Mice, Slowdive and The Cure; a time when melodic intent were welded to melody, a balance of the hook and depth that’s lost on some guitar bands today. Whilst sounds could be lifted from a John Hughes movie they are grounded by an emotional beating heart. “If it was just the melody and the hooks,” she believes, “it would be cartoony. [You need] a wash of noise… You need that balance.”
Jennie grew up “the little ‘gothy’ person” in a small Ontario (Canada) town. But pen pals turned her onto the Manchester post-punk scene. She escaped the “rocky desolation”, eventually moving to England, then to Nashville, and finally settling in NYC. A year spent “hermiting herself away”, writing and recording in her home studio, she played her first gig as Jennie Vee in Brooklyn last May.
Not to mention Snow Patrol’s Paul Wilson mixed the title track of her upcoming release. In the UK and Europe, Jennie is signed to 25 Hour Convenience Store, owned and operated by Gary Powell of The Libertines. The chiming attack of ‘Die Alone’ is laced with an attitude and a memorable pre-chorus that’s both catchy and affecting, quite apart from the despair of its title and bittersweet lyrics: it’s a song that sounds vibrant and empowering and anything but mopey…
‘Never Let You Down’ cascades with an epic post-punk atmosphere, laced with spiralling twin guitars and Jennie’s sparse yet pointed lyrical couplets promise to ‘never let you down’ before aching on a ‘now that you’re gone pain lingers on and on’. It bears all the hallmarks of Crocodiles era Echo and the Bunnymen, colliding with the majesty of early Slowdive.
“Keep calm/Carry on/Keep calm ’til it’s gone,” she sighs on the achingly tremulous ‘Skying’ that deals with being cut out by someone you care about and the ripples that causes, Jennie’s vocal stanzas lingering heavy in the air. The bruised jangle of ‘So Hard’ takes the melancholic dream pop formula and coats it in attitude, “You tear my heart out just to have fun,” she sings before a kick-ass chorus pours out from the mist….
Given Jennie Vee’s statuesque, model looks and name endorsement you might expect her sound could easily collapse into parody or cold-hearted cynical stabs at the attention of the media. But her hooky songs are imbued with enough personal experience that they resemble affectionate love letters to a time when melodies and emotions collided to wonderful effect, and it’s all sealed with her own kiss of approval; it’s unmissable and timelessly effective.
https://jennievee.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/jennieveemusic
