Mid-week releases seem to be on the rise, with artists opting to drop tracks just in time for listeners’ Wednesday afternoon commutes. For Tessa Rae, one of her first releases of 2024 falling on a Wednesday just makes sense — after all, a song about falling in love only naturally should be shared on Valentine’s Day.
The California-based pop artist shares the first taste of an upcoming EP with “Sweetly, Softly,” an appropriately tender track diving into budding romance. The song is a two-and-a-half minute wistful float, with Rae’s voice lilting over acoustic guitar and subtle strings. The rollercoaster-ride lyrical metaphor could have felt forced, the physicality of the amusement park ride jarring with the lightness of the song; but Rae pulls it off without a hitch, masterfully illustrating what she calls a “cotton candy afternoon” while keeping “Sweetly, Softly” an aural dreamscape.
Accompanying the single is a music video created in collaboration with Oliver Pearson and recorded entirely on film.
“We shot ‘Sweetly, Softly’ completely on film so as to emulate the timelessness of the song,” Rae says. “So much of this song is the fantasy of falling in love which we portrayed through dream-like imagery of me hovering above my lover as he sleeps. There was something so desolate about the beach footage that felt reminiscent of the space that love fills up, and the space that is left when love has faded away.”
Watch the video below, or simply listen to “Sweetly, Softly” via Spotify.
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