Eden Iris - Single Review: Young Guest Feat. Lucie Hill
I have followed Eden Iris since her (albeit brief) appearance on NZ X Factor in 2013, and I admire the way she has carved out her own path musically since then and created herself a life with music and songwriting well and truly at the heart of it. Proving she never really needed that glorified karaoke contest anyway! Residing predominantly in LA and more recently in California, Eden has been releasing singles on a regular basis over the past 8 years, culminating in her 2021 album The Fuchsia & The Grey.
Young Guest Feat. Lucie Hill will be her offering for 2022 and is a beautiful dreamy cross-continent collaboration, born of reconnection, co-written with Hill and self-produced by Eden Iris in her home studio, and featuring Lucie Hill (Little Lapin) on some of the vocals and backing vocals.
Upon first listen I was getting Massive Attack vibes due to the style of the production and the uncluttered but unrelenting off-beat. Eden Iris brings a modern synthy flavour to her folk singer-songwriter and indie roots, enabling her to create something quite unique. Her voice is sweet, intimate, and child-like … perfect for expressing the central theme of making peace with the inner child and accepting and loving one’s younger self unconditionally.
The track invokes a whimsical sense of mystery and charm, with great use of backing vocals and harmonies throughout, and ripples of reverb and delay in just the right places. The pre-chorus nicely builds tension before the chorus, which resolves with Hill’s beautifully delivered line “hiding in the silhouette, of a sycamore tree …” sometimes with an echo, and sometimes without, and then the last time with a gorgeous harmony accompanying it.
I like that about the production, it’s not a standard cookie-cutter formula. Eden keeps the song evolving and treats each moment as special and unique, keeping the listener’s ears fresh. She is an interesting artist. A little off-beat, with a child-like innocence and a mysterious side … I think the song does well as - almost a culmination of who she is all rolled into one track. As if that were ever possible! As artists, we can write a lifetime’s worth of songs and still feel like we haven’t quite been able to express everything that we wanted to.
This is a beautiful collab and well worth a listen or 10. Awesome creative work from a hard-working kiwi artist abroad.
About Eden Iris
Working out of her home studio in Burbank, California, not a day that goes by that Eden isn’t writing, recording, or producing. Her Demons EP (2018) was described as “soul stirring, beautifully arranged and poignantly observed…” by Mike Alexander (Sunday Star Times) and received radio-play on Los Angeles Station 88.5 KCSN, along with three of her other singles (two of them being featured as “Fresh Squeeze of the Day” By DJ Nic Harcourt).
In 2019, the haunting folk/electronica song Dark Sunday Dream found it’s cult following after being picked up by indie-folk playlist Alex Rainbird, with over half a million subscribers on YouTube. Dark Sunday Dream has also had regular rotation on Radio Paradise and has received critical acclaim by indie-folk blogs around the world. Eden’s single Worse Things (November 2019) which was co-written with Maia Sharp, premiered with Billboard and American Songwriter Magazine. With the steady release of these singles over the past year, Eden is building a strong fanbase who highly anticipate the release of her debut album in January, 2021.
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Eden Iris
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