I want the parts of you that you only show to the corner of your bathroom mirror
I want the parts of your hand grenade heart that beat slowly with anger and fear
I want the parts of you that you only show to the birds outside your bedroom window
I want the teeth that you lost as a child that you hide in a box under your pillow
At just twenty-three years old, Ruby McKinnon has already endured several lifetimes. The multidisciplinary artist creates melancholic folk music with a bedroom pop heart under the moniker Flower Face. Her breathy, ethereal offering through Nettwerk, the obsessive “Spiracle”, is a haunting confession of intensity with a DIY soul. The track comes off her new album The Shark In Your Water, which takes its title from a lyric in Spiracle.
McKinnon calls the song “a dark spiral where love becomes obsession….You love somebody, and you want to care for them, but you also want to be the shark: lurking around them always, haunting them forever.”
“This song was written in a very different method compared to my usual writing process,” she adds. “I made a demo of a really dark instrumental that just built and built, and I started singing over it, making up everything as I went along. Usually, I’m very calculated and meticulous with my lyrics, but I loved the first run that I did, so I never changed any of the lines. A lot of them made no sense at the time, but I’ve found a lot of meaning in them since then.”
Watch below the charming self-directed lyric video from Ruby herself:
The evocative sound of Flower Face recalls the raw emotion of Bright Eyes, with the candid personal conversation of Joni Mitchell. She dials down the theatrics, but there is an element of Kate Bush in her style as well. She draws inspiration from personal strife, notably a very early brush with Death when diagnosed with ovarian cancer at just seventeen years old. The experience convinced her to pursue a music career.
“Spiracle” was produced by McKinnon, Kaiser, Jay Merrow, and Alex Bonenfant at Toronto’s Dreamhouse Studios.
The Shark in Your Water is out now. Stream below:
Follow Flower Face:
Or via: