Upon her debut, Onbloom christened 2020 as the luminous year of The Star. This time around, you could say she’s dubbed 2021 the year of the Lover Girl.
Make no mistake — the thrills of her new EP Momentum (out today, September 10) come from an appreciation for emotions in full bloom, not from anything close to vapid, eyelash-batting coquetry. Boxed in by the static of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Everett singer and producer spent the last year reaching into her heart’s vault for inspiration, and bottling up her findings via six glossy R&B tracks.
Though soft-spoken by nature, Momentum offers listeners the audacity to live in the moment, every moment, even when doing so feels like an unfavorable gamble.
“The biggest inspiration in this small fraction of my work is the worldly pleasures of life and how fast they come and go,” Onbloom shares. “How intensity can create momentum time and time again to help the resistance. This project portrays how love intensifies in harmonious ways. But it also goes through heaps of too much momentum, where drowning becomes a close call, and rain floods us with suffocation. Momentum defines cycles of euphoria, and how the intensity flees but always comes back.”
A similar theme from other artists might take form in frenetic, fast-lane anthems about heartbreaks and hedonism. Yet In the hands of Onbloom, this emotional carpe diem presents itself as a dreamlike state of consciousness, cushioned by luxe beats and silky harmonizing (a “serotonin overload” in itself, Onbloom says). She unpacks heart-pounding moments with a casual air, allowing the album’s titular theme to coalesce its own pace.
“I didn’t realize until afterwards that [a theme of] momentum brought everything together so cohesively,” Onbloom tells Vanyaland.
In turn, Momentum taught her how to create and process life at her own pace, too.
“The pandemic taught me that life is too short. I only can control what’s in front of me in this present moment,” she concludes. “Time is so sensitive and so precious. It influenced me to act out on how I’m feeling in the moment when it feels right. But it also taught me to take my time to process my day to day life and emotions. Most of all it taught me how to be gentle with myself no matter the circumstances. I gave myself the freedom to make mistakes during the process of making the project. I gave myself reassurance that my sound is worthy and beautiful. It ultimately was a huge confidence booster.”
Feel the force of Onbloom’s Momentum below.