Kevin Bronson on October 6th, 2016

0

Electronic pop duo EXES are singer Allie McDonald and producer Mike Derenzo, who met while attending Loyola Marymount University. Who knows, maybe it was in chemistry class, because the songs on their debut EP, “The Art of Saying Goodbye,” sound as if they’ve poured their emotions into a crucible and simmered them for full melancholic effect. “Sherman Oaks” is the fifth song the Venice Beach-based duo have revealed off the six-song EP, which drops Friday, and it moves like traffic on Ventura Boulevard at 5:15 p.m. Over low clouds of beats and synths, McDonald obsesses over a night of “shared secrets” and fleeting romance, later ending up “in the driveway / calling out your name.” Says the singer: “I wrote Sherman Oaks out of desperation and heartache, months ago, in the middle of the night. It was a song I needed to write in order to heal. I fell hard and fast for someone new — and when I tried to let go, I couldn’t.” File under sad songs for spurned lovers; the salt in the wound, of course, is having to drive through the Sepulveda Pass to have your heart broken.

||| Stream: “Sherman Oaks”

||| Also: Check out “Like You” and “Dear, Home”