New York songwriter Anastasia Coope weaves her surrealist imagery with folk melancholy on her new single, “Mattered and Sworn.”
In the wake of last summer’s lockdown, the 18-year-old visual art student began experimenting with Garageband and her mother’s old Martin acoustic guitar to pass the time. Honing her sound on influences that range from Vashti Bunyan to Animal Collective and composer Steve Reich, Coope’s material traverses genre boundaries.
On her new single “Mattered and Sworn,” Coope’s delivery is reminiscent of Joanna Newsom, acting more like an instrument as her voice descends and rises with each note at varying speeds. “Now it is time to rid myself of something Mattered and Sworn,” Coope hastily repeats as though she may not be able to lift a burdensome weight from her shoulders.
The track features a quietly plucked guitar for nearly all of it’s short two-minute run time, and an atmospheric saxophone line at it’s midway point played by Patrick Shoroishi.
“Mattered and sworn is a song about how my internal creative process relates to those who I associate myself with. It’s a stream of consciousness, lyric-centered track,” said Coope in a statement. “Although it had a specific meaning when I wrote it, I find that it often shifts when listening back.”
Coope leaves you out of breath, but in a way that plays like a television cliffhanger, eager to witness more from the young upstart.
Her self-released debut EP Seemingly is out June 25.