For Charlotte Rose Benjamin, the distance from Martha’s Vineyard to Brooklyn is just a ferry ride — and a catchy-ass song — away. The Massachusetts native released a stirring new indie-pop single this week in “Slot Machine,” the latest from her forthcoming debut album, Dreamtina, out April 22, and it connects her upbringing on the vineyard to her current life in New York City though a tale of unrequited love and falling somewhere between the lines that defines millennials and Gen Z.
But really, when Benjamin describes “Slot Machine” as a “Sunday-morning-strolling-through-a-New-England-Beach-town kind of song,” she really has our attention.
“I think there’s a waspy country club vibe that comes to mind when people hear that I’m from Martha’s Vineyard,” explains Benjamin. “That definitely exists, but most people who are privileged enough don’t choose to live there in the off season. I always identified more with the towny girls from the movie Mystic Pizza. I had a wonderful childhood, but living on an island can be incredibly isolating. My music has changed so much since I left, but I think I’ll always have a little bit of a twang in my writing because of where I grew up.”
“Slot Machine” arrives with a music video that finds Benjamin dancing on the water under the shadows of skyscrapers, and she sums up the experience nicely: “My best friend Hlif and I got day drunk and took the Williamsburg Ferry into Chinatown with a camcorder and a dream.”
Get into it.
***