Naomi Alligator, the project of Los Angeles-based songwriter and multi-media artist Corrinne James, shares a self-directed video featuring original animations for her new single “Blue For You,” the latest from her recently announced new album, Double Knot,  out July 1st on Carpark Records.

“Blue For You is a song about obsessing over a bad relationship. It’s also about navigating confusing friendships that sometimes lean into romantic relationships,” says James. “The video focuses on a girl who is in love with her shitty boyfriend. He’s the worst but she doesn’t wanna believe that she’s stuck in a relationship with someone who doesn’t actually love/like her.”

Naomi Alligator’s home-spun recordings serve as a platform for James’ lyrical narratives. Both mournful and aspirant, this collection of songs wrestles with monolithic themes such as loneliness and yearning with an uncommon earnestness.

Naomi Alligator began writing Double Knot while living in Philadelphia during the height of the pandemic and the deterioration of a longterm romance. When asked though, Naomi rejects the notion that Double Knot is a breakup album, or autobiographical at all. Moreso, she says, it’s a personal reckoning in which, “the minute before you make a big decision, you tally up the reasons why you don’t want to do what you’re doing anymore.”

That desire to turn the page expands to the production of the album as well. Naomi Alligator generally houses her narratives in beds of minimal, home-tracked instrumentation—influenced by the stripped-down poeticism of Joan Baez and Liz Phair’s Girly-Sound tapes. Double Knot finds Naomi continuing to hone the winning combination of guitar and banjo she established on 2021’s Concession Stand Girl EP. For Double Knot though, Naomi wanted a fuller, more dynamic sound: more instruments, more harmonies, more layering, more, more, more. Inspired by the impressionistic melodies of Animal Collective and MGMT, Naomi peppers in computer-generated synths throughout the album, most notably on the song “Burn Out.” These electronic flourishes augment the more grounding string instruments, arriving somewhere more ethereal than Naomi’s earlier work while still maintaining her warm songwriting.

Photo Courtesy: Matthew James-Wilson