On her upcoming EP, Welcome To The Wasteland, Texan-songwriter Alex McArtor sets out to explore the universal experience of growing up while delivering it through her own unique lens. The record is a meditation on the emotional disconnect Alex experienced growing up in the suburbs of Dallas, littered with themes of alienation and feeling like an outsider in her own home town. If that’s all sounding a little bleak, worry not, as dotted throughout the EP’s six tracks is a sense of hope. The landscapes Alex portrays may be desolate and lonely, her take on the faded underbelly of the American dream, lurking within is an undercurrent of self-salvation. There’s a feeling here that despite the struggles, that self-expression finds a way to bloom. Following up from the de-facto title track, Wasteland, today Alex is premiering the record’s stunning latest offering, Bras And Jeans.

Listening to the music that she makes, Alex’s declaration that David Lynch is a strong influence almost goes without explanation. Much of the record was written in a remote setting in East Texas, and the music is writ large with a strange sense of unease, the middle ground between beautiful isolation and just plain creepy. It’s a perfect fit for Bras and Jeans exploration of societu’s highly questionable obsession with teenage girls and the voyeuristic nature of the male gaze.

Musically, Bras and Jeans marks something of a departure from the other tracks on Wasteland, foregoing the textures of swooping, dramatic alt-pop that characterised Wasteland, for something brighter and more driving. A flurry of electric guitar riffs collide with the steady clatter of the drumbeat and rapid-fire vocals, coming across like the middle-ground of Hatchie and Arcade Fire.

Read Alex’s explanation of the track’s themes and check out the accompanying video below.

“Bras and Jeans” is based on a time when my friends and I were swimming in a lake and all these horny freshman boys were watching us. It turned into a song about society’s infatuation with exploiting girls as they transition into womanhood, at a point when they aren’t fully aware of their sexuality—which is then imposed on us before we’re ready. A woman’s sexuality and power belong to her; it’s not something there for the taking by the voyeurs of the world.

Alex McArtor on Bras and Jeans.

Welcome To The Wasteland is out June 25th. For more information on Alex McArtor visit https://www.alexmcartormusic.com/.