by John Glab (@glabglabglab_)
Sometimes emotions don’t flood out in one large catharsis. Sometimes they just simmer in internal indignation. Sometimes the wrongs of the world sit in the center of your head, solidified like a rock, with no way to chisel it into something that feels good to think about again. This feeling of lingering negative thoughts with no simple way to get rid of them is present on Safe Then Sorry, the newest EP from CIAO MALZ.
Malia DelaCruz, the front person behind the CIAO MALZ, has been gradually releasing singles and performing around New York City for the past couple of years. On her new EP, DelaCruz spills her thoughts of what’s been eating at her mind, lamenting the stories surrounding certain characters. Around many of these characters, there’s a sense of leaving and that longing sensation, a feeling which sits, charring a hole in her conscious. What’s precarious about these relationships is that there is no simple fix; it takes two. Oftentimes, there’s nothing in your power you can do to remedy a relationship, but that doesn’t mean the excruciating feeling doesn’t go away. It burns at a person’s soul without any sort of release.
Release isn’t always an easy thing either. It’s hard to reach out to others and spill what’s so burdening. For DelaCruz, it gradually escapes in “Safe Than Sorry.” It’s reflected in the EP’s instrumentation. It’s minimalistic in its maximalism with many calm, simple, and dense textures overlayed in complex compositions. As DelaCruz plays through, those compositions and sounds gradually begin to build. The rise is buried in the multitude of layers, like it’s an intentional attempt to keep it hidden. This effect is prominent on songs like “Two Feet Tall” or “Gold Rush.”
It’s as if she’s about to crash her personal barriers and let all this internal tension burst out. But as each of those ebbs flow upwards, they then simmer back down. It’s the feeling of her about to open and confront something, but not quite having the willpower or energy to go all the way through. With this sentiment, DelaCruz also expresses a sense of frustration with herself, specifically in “Bad for the Bady Guy,” where she labels herself as the antagonist in her story but also finds enough self-respect to sympathize with herself and understand the convoluted context of her situation. All these feelings are convoluted, like a knot that’s impossible to unravel.
The sounds across the EP are reminiscent of the sugary and luscious indie musicians of the 2010s like Girl In Red and Men I Trust. Silky plucked guitars reverberate and warble like currents over the infinite blues of a deep lake of mellow ambience from bass and unintrusive rhythms. Drumming with folk-like sensibilities play along, controlling the pace of the songs’ thoughts and emotional swirl. All these produce a straying feeling in a misty atmosphere. It’s all a great accompaniment for DelaCruz’s own expression of being lost in emotion and stranded between trying to find a way to change things and accepting the loss.