Growing up isn’t easy to do. Letting go of your innocence as you face up to the realities of a world that plays on your emotions and preys on your fear is an unsettling time, a time that provides a rich vein of material for singer-songwriters to mine for songs that explore these very human anxieties.
Adding her own take to this, Devonian Abi Sinclair releases debut single ‘Dream’ – “a gentle head banger that delves into our darkest insecurities” – on 01/09/21, through her South East London based solo project Sister Lucy, with an upcoming EP due out later this year.
Starting off as a busker style shuffle, which brings to mind Gomez’s ‘Whipping Piccadilly’, Sinclair’s vocal is whimsical and starry-eyed and fits squarely with the Soccer Mommy/Phoebe Bridgers female indie perspective, reconciling the world on her own terms.
When we get to the chorus though and she sings “But you still dream when I’m there”, the grungy guitar causes a change in mood, a subtle reverb on her vocals giving a sense of disorientation and insecurity which is brought back into the shuffling verse – “I only wanted to be wanted, to be good enough”. By the end of the track, Sinclair is adrift and frustrated, venting and throwing up questions fuelled by menacing guitar, “What the hell am I doing here? What’s a girl gotta do?”. She feels her way through the dark, humming for reassurance, back to a kind of reconciliation.
A good honest debut track that sends out a clear message that sometimes life doesn’t always throw up the goods but if you believe in yourself and overcome the doubt you will find a way through.
Words by Andy G