HollyBear – “OBVIOUS”

HollyBear’s new single “OBVIOUS” is one of my favorite tracks for the month. It’s got this warm, laid-back groove that pulls you in immediately. The production here is full without being busy. Keyboard, strings, bass, programmed drums all layered carefully, and underneath all of it are 14 stacked vocal tracks that give the harmonies a really rich, almost cushioned quality. HollyBear calls her style JazznB, and “OBVIOUS” earns that label. It does not sound like R&B trying to be jazzy. It sounds like someone who genuinely absorbed both and wrote a song from that place.

The track is doing something specific. It’s not a breakup anthem and it’s not a revenge fantasy either, not really. It’s more like that quiet, clear-eyed moment when you look back at a situation and realize you saw exactly what was happening the whole time. There’s sass in it, but it’s calm sass. The kind that doesn’t need to raise its voice. This is why I love it in the first place.

The self-produced nature of this is hard to ignore. Everything here, the vocals, the arrangement, the whole feel of it, came from one person working alone at home. That intimacy actually comes through in the performance. The delivery never sounds like she’s performing for a crowd. It sounds like she’s telling you something true.

“OBVIOUS” is one of the more quietly confident singles I’ve come across this year. Go check out her earlier releases too, and follow HollyBear wherever she’s active online, because she’s worth keeping up with. Have you discovered any other independent JazznB artists lately?