Premiere: Mirrorball, ‘Tinsel for a Tear’

on
0
Mirrorball (Photo by Stephanie Nicole Smith)

Mirrorball — vocalist Alexandra Johnstone (ex-White Dove) and multi-instrumentalist Scott Watson — debuted in 2019 with a pair of dreamy pop songs released via Dangerbird Records.

The pandemic foiled plans to move the project ahead quickly, but the duo was afforded the chance to record some music at Sunset Sound with producer Chris Coady (who has worked with Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio). And this week Mirrorball return with “Tinsel for a Tear,” the first single from their forthcoming debut EP.

Wrapped in warm keys and moving like a breeze that snakes through the hills of Los Angeles, “Tinsel for a Tear” glides ’70s-style along the faultline between melancholy and hope, Johnstone wistfully lamenting the changes that have beset her hometown.

“I wrote the lyrics when I was going through the absurdity of New Years’ Eve in a rapidly changing Los Angeles,” says Johnstone, adding that the song is “a mixture of love, hate and hope (but mostly love) for the place I call my home. It’s also an ode to getting older, feeling on the brink and hanging on to old friends through it all.”

While the chorus swells with buoyancy, “Tinsel” ends on a portentous note: “Panic in the city of night,” Johnstone sings, a reminder that reckoning with change is a bumpy road.

||| Stream: “Tinsel for a Tear”

||| Live: Mirrorball perform the early show on Saturday night at Permanent Records Roadhouse.

||| Previously: “This Time”