Stream: Jane Holiday, ‘Pocket Dial’

Kevin Bronson on November 22nd, 2019

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Singer-songwriter Raj Jain — who makes music under the persona Jane Holiday — has had a fruitful 2019. In October, he issued his “Still Ill” EP, a release that collected singles dating back to last year’s “Something to Believe In,” a song that earned him notice owing to its inclusion in the NBA 2K20 soundtrack.

And today Holiday released the “Still Ill B-sides” EP, four more tracks that don’t sound like B-sides at all.

Short on neither hooks nor attitude, Holiday’s music straddles the space between swaggering electro-rock and sleek, beat-driven synth-pop. The new EP’s first track “Sister” bumps to a deep, old-school groove, while the new single “Pocket Dial,” with its slick, arching chorus, questions the veracity of a declaration of love — as in, was it really meant to be heard?

Of his musical persona, the songwriter says, “I am obsessed with the idea of characters existing within the musical realm. In many ways I have become that person whether I wanted to or not, and the idea of that character has kind of crossed into my life, but there’s something really fun and beautiful about that.”

And of the bonus EP, which comes just a month after the first, he explains: “All these songs were created in a similar time as ‘Still Ill’ was being created. There is something very scary to me about leaving things unsaid. This B-sides project is the other half of the conversation I never got off my chest.”

||| Stream: “Pocket Dial,” “Sister” and “Something to Believe In”