Ears Wide Open: Primer

Matt Wallock on March 29th, 2022

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Primer’s Alyssa Midcalf wrote nine of the 10 songs on her forthcoming album “Incubator” while in a since-lapsed five-year relationship, with the only exception being the liberating album closer “Warning.” There, the singer and producer proclaims “I’m never gonna feel that way for you again.”

“Incubator” — out April 15 via Egghunt Records — is Midcalf’s sophomore album under the moniker Primer, following her 2019 debut “Novelty.” Formerly one-half of the Michigan duo PARTS (and long before that, part of the Palm Springs trio You Me & Us), she has already shared two singles from the record, “Warning” and “Just a Clown.” This week brought a third, titled “Feel the Way I Do.” The track opens with strutting basslines and glimmering synths, but Midcalf’s breathless, crystalline vocals are the main draw. Her subject here is an unnamed inner monster that threatens a relationship.

“‘Feel The Way I Do’ is a song about a witch that has a little beast that lives deep down inside her,” Midcalf says. “She discovered the beast at an early age and went through a long process to accept the beast as being a part of her. Now as an adult, even though she has come to terms with her secret, she knows she can never be fully open and honest with her partner until she tells them about her little beast. She desperately wishes her partner had a beast of their own so they could understand and empathize, but they don’t have the same experience.”

Midcalf co-produced “Incubator” with Noah Prebish, who also engineered the record. “Feel the Way I Do” is a darkly magnetic cut off the album, showing that Primer remains a vehicle for Midcalf’s bracingly honest, ’80s-inspired dance music.

||| Stream: “Feel the Way I Do”