Sarah Winters, aka Vōx, cold tweeted a SoundCloud link at me one day in late December, with a very bold: “Hey, I think you will like my music.”
It was her latest song (at the time) “Better” and something about her profile picture –where she is laying on the grass, enveloped in a stunning red robe — compelled me to listen.
The vocals-driven, stripped-down composition features a very dissonant piano chord intro sequence. It prompted me to place a bet with a friend on whether it was the sample to “Benny and the Jets.”
It wasn’t. But can you hear it?
The bare-bones minimalist approach – comprised of punchy drum patterns and sharp chords — creates a wide playground where Sarah’s vocals are free to roam in all their seductive fancy, which I would describe as a “deeper–Kimbra–meets–Lorde–at–a–Feist junction.”
I instantly loved what I heard and all the subsequent releases that followed.
Her latest tour de force, “Claws“, features a whimsical opening harp melody, which is the ultimate temptress in this bewitched game of hunter and prey that plays itself out in this impassioned tale of seduction.
BUT it’s the melancholia-infused chord progressions that accompany the lines: ” you can have me like a beast/have me, have me/only you can make me weak/me weak, me weak/all it really takes is your claws out, claws out/all it really takes is your claws out…” that ultimately does it for me.
This is where all of my musicalities and Vox’s knack for evocative come together, no pun intended, in a perfect apex.
I hope there are plans in the making for a “Claws” music video.
In addition to her song-writing prowess, Vox is fast becoming one of LA’s most coveted style icons…One look at her instagram feed and it becomes obvious that this girl’s fashion sense is turned on max.
(And don’t even think about booking an appointment with her nail lady…I tried, and the wait is about 7 months….Good luck!)