Stream: Ruby Friedman, ‘Un4GvN’ (feat. Two Beards)

Kevin Bronson on January 26th, 2018

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Singer Ruby Friedman proved devastating on “Gem,” the Ruby Friedman Orchestra’s album of Americana-soul boot-stompers and ballads released in 2016. She is no less smoldering, if a little more contemporary-sounding, on her new single “Un4GvN,” a collaboration with production duo Two Beards (Alex Elena and Steve Baughman). It’s the first of a handful of songs Friedman plans to record with Two Beards leading up to an EP. It’s also a song, she says, “inspired by my inability to move past a hurt when it still hurts.”

She adds, “There are so many reminders of a specific psychopathy in everyday stories of men in similar power positions to the man with whom I was involved.”

Friedman sounds damaged and bitter, unleashing a lyrical barrage worthy of any rapper, yet phrased like the powerhouse singer she is: “Circle the wagons / hire mercenary dragons / to burn all the evidence / and build your case / to preserve your fake empire / of smoke and mirrors and incense / You took away her only home / She never found her way back home.”

It’s a song with a long memory and a strong heart.

||| Stream: “Un4GvN”