CHRISTYMERRY

here for you is the debut EP by Minneapolis-based singer/ songwriter Christy Merry. Across its five tracks, Merry and collaborator Matt Patrick present a digital-age reinvention of the classic singer-songwriter template - one that recreates the melancholic feel and hushed ambience of simple songs written on acoustic guitar with layers of synthesizers, looping drums and heavily treated electric instruments. 

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The results range from stark (the acoustic trip-hop of “Reach for Me,” which equally recalls Portishead and Toe) to lush (the expansive 80s New Age synths of “Peter’s Lullaby” and “Don’t Be Afraid”), but never pull from Merry’s vocals, which serve as the emotional center of the project. Suffused with a wistful sadness, this group of songs serves as an essay on the way we try to connect with others despite the barriers placed between us - be they time, place, history or circumstance. 

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here for you uses the language of post-modern folk-rock (see: 90s classics like The Innocence Mission or Weeping Tile) to explore distinctly modern emotional paradoxes, such as longing for connection amidst an era that fosters disconnection. The sessions that birthed the EP saw Merry reunited with Patrick, whom she’s known since high school - an unlikely reconnection that shaped the sonics of the record and points towards the album’s themes of resilience and reconnection. 

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Ultimately, the EP lives up to its name by continually returning to a state of hopefulness despite its somewhat sorrowful tone. Through themes of togetherness and collaboration, Merry’s songs suggest that a better and more compassionate future is possible if we embrace ourselves and others with the same empathy and kindness as the kids on the album’s cover. The collision of these various musical, emotional and thematic elements makes here for you a unique experience that might, for a moment, take you out of the squalid morass that is modern living and give you a bit of audacious hope.  
 

- bio by Ali Jafaar

THE LATEST

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• My first solo project, here for you - an EP of 5 original songs - was just released on 2/5/2021!

• On 2/20/21, I released a new poetry chapbook, Before Cancer Comes For Me - see BOOKS page for more info 

• See LINKS page if you would like to see the various press coverage from this year

• On 10/3/21, 'I Wish You'd Tried' from Here for You EP was included in Aldora Britain's compilation King For a Day

• In Fall 2021, will begin recording a new EP with Matt Patrick at the Library Studio. Stay tuned!

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"They are songs that require full attention but will reward the listener with catharsis."

- Ann Treacy, Mostly Minnesota Music

I Wish You'd Tried 

(lyrics)

 

I went to the park again today, I cried / Not knowing if you lived or if you'd died / Knowing you've got no one by your side / I wished, I wished again that you had tried 

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I bet that you are lying in your bed / Lying there with daggers in your head / The sun that shines would only hurt your eyes / The sun that shines would only hurt

your eyes

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You said that you were hurt when you were young / the taste of it is always on your tongue / you drink to try to wash that taste away / you fear that it is always here to stay / you fear that it is always here to stay