Jane Benny – vocalist, keyboardist and co-founder of Montreal indie pop band TOPS – has announced her solo debut. the flattening The EP will be released on April 5 via Luminelle Recordings, and she will release her first single, “Messages,” today. Check out the Otium-guided video below.
“It's a pop song about getting notifications from everyone except the one person you want to listen to, which is what was happening to me at the time,” Benny explained in a statement. Opening sample — “There's a message for you” is a strange message sent by credit card machines in Montreal taxis.
The accompanying video is inspired by Maya Deren's 1943 film Afternoon networks. “The concept came from reflecting on the journey that led me to a solo project, a journey that involved searching for myself, striving for some true essence, and realizing that this would happen naturally and not something I needed to impose,” she added.
Discussing the project as a whole, Benny said: “There are things I wanted to explore sonically and creatively, which would be impossible in the context of TOPS. I wanted to challenge myself to create a whole world of my own, to write all the parts, program the drums, pick every sample, write the bass line. When It took over the entire world of music I was creating, I felt like it also opened up a lot of emotional space, sensuality and intuition that comes through isolation. It took a while to get to a point where I feel like I'm ready to share, but now the floodgates are open and I'll definitely continue on this path.
In 2022, TOPS' Marta Sekojevic released her self-titled debut album Marci.
flattening EP cover artwork:
flattening EP track list:
1. Darkness can wait one night
2 messages
3. Get dressed
4. Streaming
5. Real artificial
6. Pretty ordinary
7. Accelerate slowly
