Video: Donna Missal, ‘Move Me’

Kevin Bronson on June 14th, 2023

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In the spring of 2019, New Jersey-bred, L.A.-based singer-songwriter Donna Missal was doing a popping headlining tour in slupport of her debut album. Three years later, her sophomore album having arrived inconveniently in the early months of the pandemic and having been dumped by Harvest Records, Missal was living in her car or couch-surfing with friends.

But Missal, who paid her dues as a songwriter and backing vocalist before her solo career took off, steeled herself and eventually got back to business. Her new album, the self-released “Revel” (out Friday), channels those dark times into something typically exuberant, even combative, dance music as an empowering force.

“‘Revel’ is an album about pushing through pain and reaching for light and feeling the revelry of transcending our darkest times,” Missal says. ““It’s hopeful, but it’s honest about how hard that can be. Inevitably though it’s so full of energy, and it was the most cathartic process to make it. It’s my first independent album and I feel more free and connected to what I’ve made than ever.”

Missal has released three singles and videos thus far, probably the most telling of which is the club banger “Flicker.” For the video she worked with choreographer Sadie Wilking on a physically demanding dance sequence in a grimy warehouse. It’s a metaphor for what she’s been through.

Latest single “Move Me” is a straightforward ode to music itself. “‘Move Me’ is about my love of music and how much it means to me, and I wanted it to feel like you could sing it to anyone or anything that gives you that feeling of being so full of love,” Missal says.

||| Watch: The video for “Move Me”