Swedish singer/songwriter Paula Jivén makes spellbindingly original pop music, each song sparked from her radiant imagination. Arriving ahead of her debut EP release is the stand-out single ‘Say That’, a hypnotic chill-pop offering that served as a cathartic song-writing experience for Jivén.
On creating the track, Jivén shares:
“‘Say That’ is a song that I wrote at a special time of my life. I had just turned 16, I was in LA on a songwriting trip working with people that I admire and doing meetings in crazy record-label buildings. I was getting to do things I had been dreaming about for so long! But something was still not sitting right with me. I think this was the first time I really experienced the downsides of materialism, and it was overwhelming me in the weirdest way. I felt like although I had so much, I was still missing something, the way all humans do, I guess. We never seem to get enough. And when you think you have it all, it’s still not enough, you can’t really talk about it! And that’s where the title comes in. It was something taking up a lot of my mindspace, but I couldn’t really find a way to talk about it without feeling like I was coming off as ungrateful. Writing about it felt like a healthy way to unpack all of these thoughts in a healthy environment. It helped me realize that it's a privilege to have these problems, but it’s still ok to feel like shit.”
All throughout her debut, Jivén illuminates the potent balance of emotional realism and dreamy sensitivity within her songwriting—a dynamic intensified by each track's graceful interlacing of live instrumentation and electronic experimentation.
Listen here