London-born, half-Scottish songwriter, director, singer, and artist Blixie Perestroika has released her gorgeous debut album, Ambition is Low, which could be heard HERE.

“The release date of the Album is September 9th, the date John Lennon released ‘Imagine.’” explains Blixie Perestroika.“It was a bit of an inside joke because of the sheer, mind-numbing audacity of releasing anything on that hallowed date and also because the album title is the antithesis of this broad social desire to strive to be heard, to hope for impact. So to set a debut release on the day that an album of arguably the greatest social impact in rock music was released is a bit sardonic.”

“The title is also a play on an Ian Curtis lyric from ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’:  “When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low…” continues Blixie. “It is heartbreaking and heartfelt and gut-wrenching when he sings it as an observation, or admission, of defeat. I’ve always loved the lyric, but have altered it to mean something a bit different, and applied it to a different time and context. Nowadays it feels like a kind of amorphous ambition has settled over everyone like a gas…it is unthinkable not to be pushing or promoting something, and that thing is usually some caricature version of your idealized self. I find it depressing and I’m suspicious of that desire, that ambition. Tired of narcissists, tired of the relentless noise. It’s probably a Miserabilist perspective, and I’m not trying to cut anyone down, I know everyone needs aspiration or a level of self-belief to get up in the morning and keep going. When we write as a band, it’s for ourselves because we can’t contain it any longer. Afterward though there is a moment where you think, ‘fuck – maybe someone out there will get this and maybe my fantasy of finding truly like-minded people out there actually exists…” but even after pouring my lifeblood into this album over the last several years…there’s no control over whether people will connect with it or not. And that’s okay. So the point is to do it for it’s own sake. Fuck ambition. Ambition is low. Surely it’s more useful to plant a tree, or something.”

To mark the occasion, Blixie Perestroika has also shared a new visual companion for the dark and soaring ballad, “Swing.” It might sound angry but it’s really yearning,” she explains of “Swing”. “Sometimes you can’t say something to someone directly, because they won’t hear you. So for me, it comes out in music.” The melancholic, baiting chorus belies an emotional undertow that catches the listener off guard

“This one has had a visceral impact on people, maybe because it’s raw. I sang it once or twice after writing it and the vocals are not perfect,” continues Blixie. “It speaks directly to an intensely personal situation which – sadly – turns out to be a more shared experience than I realized.”  Detailing the end of an enmeshed relationship, the haunting instrumentation fuels a sense of confrontation without resolve, a demand for recognition knowing it will never be given. “It can be painful to ask questions and to confront behavior that is baked into a dynamic for years…to even question a shared narrative, let alone rewrite it. I don’t blame people who choose to look the other way. Going along with the lie/dominant narrative has its own rewards. The truth can be a cold, confusing, and inhospitable void. But if you believe in truth there isn’t another way. I also don’t have a choice; I’m not that good at fakery.”
 
“‘Swing’ was one of the earliest tracks we recorded; we had written a lot of the music in one mad session so when I got into the studio it was there, skeletal but replete. When I went to the booth. It was as though the melody and many specific lyrics including the chorus line were already there, I had a deja vu sense they’d already been sung. That happens  sometimes; it’s disorienting. Maybe it’s just the non-linearity of time peering through.”
 
“I generally consider this to be an age of greed, gullibility and near total impunity, but I think in parallel we’re also living through a time of emotional enlightenment – possibly the flipside, or the upside to the tidal wave of narcissism we’ve been swimming in for years since social media changed society and we had an attempted clown show coup d’etat. Hopefully we’re approaching the reevaluation of ourselves and others’ behavior with empathy, but that requires nuance so I won’t get my hopes up.”

Photo Courtesy: Chloé McLennan