Stream: Jaws of Love, ‘Patricia’

Kevin Bronson on May 10th, 2022

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Before the band he co-founded, Local Natives, launch their big summer tour, songwriter Kelcey Ayer is slipping out a new release from his solo project, Jaws of Love.

The EP “Patricia” will be out on May 27 via bandmate Nik Ewing’s Chewing Inc. label. It finds Ayer plying his immersive, down-tempo balladry in a five-song release dedicated to and named for his late mother.

Title track and EP closer, “Patricia,” casts an ethereal glow to the project, vocal effects floating in and out, chorus repeating like a chant, every bit like the dreams Ayer says inspired the song. “Ever since my mother passed away 11 years ago, I’ve been having dreams about her,” he says. “We’ll share a nice moment, or we’ll be in the middle of a screaming match, but I am with her, not questioning the fact that she is there, that we are alive, together, just as before. Then I wake up and am plunged back into reality where she is gone. There have been so many painful mornings where I have to feel the hurt all over again. Though on the other hand, it’s bittersweet because I also get to relive the feeling of her being alive. We all find ways to keep our loved ones alive, be it through stories or memories, and dreaming of her seems to be mine.”

Ayer credits the pandemic for “giving me time to really explore my identity in a way I hadn’t before, leading me to making this EP,” he says. “Which is about reconnecting with my Colombian heritage through the memory of my late mother, Patricia.”

||| Stream: “Patricia”