Mae Powell - Both Ways Brighter (2021) [Hi-Res]

Bay Area indie-pop singer/songwriter Mae Powell is announcing Both Ways Brighter, her debut album, out Aug. 20 via Park the Van Records. You can watch the video for lead single “Weird Dreams” down below, exclusively at Paste.

“Weird Dreams” is a soothing and surreal pop track, in which Powell does her best to make sense of her brain’s nocturnal ramblings. Over garbled acoustic guitar, gentle bossa nova percussion, lush strings and bleary lap steel accents, Powell recalls a literal flight of fancy (“On a plane from New York City / The plane crashes four or five or six times / The pilot says it’s ‘cus a stoner got a hold of the controller,” she croons) and connects her subconscious mind’s messaging to The Discourse, each as much an impediment to understanding as a means of achieving it: “Why are there two sides to everything / but no one’s in the middle? / Why am I stuck between overbearing / And way, way, way, way, way too subtle?”