Los Angeles trio Gal Pal have shared their new single & video “Mirror.” The project of Emelia Austin (she/her), Shayna Hahn (she/her) and Nico Romero (he/him), Gal Pal was born out of a serendipitous meeting in college — same dorm, same floor, each member drawn to the other by shared ambition and a desire to play music in a space that felt non-judgemental and generative. Initial collaborations were improvisatory, long-winded and playful in the truest sense. They worked with equipment recently bought, a drum kit no one yet knew how to play. “We were learning our instruments together,” says Romero. “The project started from wanting to learn how to play and write songs with other people.”

On the new single, Gal Pal have altered their process. Now all in their mid-twenties, Austin, Hahn and Romero experimented for the first time with writing in isolation, crafting songs with words all their own before bringing them to the group. There’s a newfound confidence and vision – vocals build to choral crescendos and intricately arranged guitars foreground “Mirror,” which vocalist Emelia Austin explains “formed from Nico playing cyclical guitar riffs over and over again. It helped me form the theme of being stuck in a pattern. I then wrote lyrics that were cut-off sentences, repeating again and again to express that feeling. For me, ‘Mirror’ is about the ways we allow our identities to be misshaped by people in our lives, how we are used as reflections for others, and the anxiety over being able to control it or not.” The new single features production assistance from Danny Nogueiras & Sami Perez (Cherry Glazerr, Jerry Paper) and a significant sonic overhaul for the trio.

Photo Courtesy: Marlon Mara-Lenoble