Stream: The Sunshine State, ‘In Another Life’

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The Sunshine State (Photo by Nick Monson)

Skyler Stonestreet has written for pop stars. Now, on her debut mini-album as the Sunshine State, she sounds like one — the charismatic, self-aware and savvy type.

Featuring unfussy but robust production from Nick Monson, “In Another Life” soars through eight hook-filled tracks, with Stonestreet joined by co-writer Hayley Gene Penner to put a sweet but knowing spin on the misadventures of the past.

“We had zero rules or pressure while making this, and it means so much to have a project that I just 1000% love and wanna sing along to,” Stonestreet says. “These songs are freeing without any consequences, and all except one took place at a time in my youth, when I was a very different person than I am now. ‘In Another Life’ is nostalgia wrapped up with a sparkly bow but also a chapter of what my life also would have been like if I had followed some of the insane tumultuous ways of my past, and not asked myself what I really wanted.”

Stonestreet brings to life past liaisons with a wistful note of that-was-then — “Cliff Drive” (and its prevaricating older boy seducing a teenager), “Dating a Drug Dealer” (exactly what it says), “Bob” (a bad boy with a gun), “Favorite Person” (about a relationship doomed not to last) and the EP’s closer, “Pushing 30.” It’s the only track where bitterness actually takes over, though of course it sounds as if Stonestreet is singing a sonnet: “The only way we’ll speak / is through a lawyer or attorney.”

In the end, those are all in the past, though speaking from her state of emotional sunshine in the title track, the songwriter can’t help but think: “I’ve turned into somebody that I wonder if you’d like.”

||| Stream: “In Another Life” in its entirety

||| Previously: “Favorite Person,” “Bob” / “Dating a Drug Dealer”