Stunning visual artist, songwriter and musician PARKER has today announced her new single Lie Low, a deeply moving song about reclaiming power, out today, March 8. Lie Low is intentionally released on International Women’s Day 2021, and this song is set to be an inspiration for any woman who has ever diminished their own hopes, dreams and talents to allow someone else to take the spotlight. Accompanying the intensely introspective track is a masterful film clip offering an eerie yet beautiful visual reflection of the song, created with long time visual collaborator Hans van Vliet.
Lie Low will mean many things to many people, but it is safe to say that women will be particularly moved by this work. It takes a lot of strength to release a song that is so lyrically raw, so vulnerable, and so willing to pick at the most difficult and stigmatised moments of being a woman in a creative field. The sparse, delicate, yet mighty production on this track, paired with Parker’s close, intimate vocal performance, makes for a supremely luscious and evocative track.
Speaking on the inspiration for this affecting song, Parker offers some extraordinarily honest insight, saying, “I’ve always held myself with a belief that I should exist in the world with quiet grace. Not be too loud or stand out too much…Even though my friends, parents and partners have encouraged me to follow my dreams I always felt this responsibility to not be too loud or abrasive, to look pretty, to sound pretty, to not challenge people too much, make music and art that is beautiful and easy to listen to and look at. Hans and I were working remotely on the track and we had the ‘be less, be less’ section looping at the end. I felt this rage inside me in response to that idea. This feeling of frustration at all the times I’ve controlled my emotions so that I didn’t make others feel uncomfortable. I set up my mic in my bedroom and just started screaming and yelling until finally it felt like my heart cracked open. The floodgates opened up and I wept loudly for about 10 mins.”
The video for Lie Low is also an appropriately emotional experience. Surreal, bizarre, unsettling – the colours shift and move within an entirely new world as Parker performs alone, and wanders through the ever-changing landscape. Reflecting on the meaning behind the artistic choices in the clip, Parker explains, “We talked about the courage it takes as a woman to put yourself first in a world where there are still so many expectations for women to play support roles in both career and domestic spaces. Thinking about the concept of sacrificing time and energy for another we found a way to represent this with the metaphor of colour being drained from one character to another. I like that it is not explicit that the colour is being taken or given. When the character drops to her knees she could be crying or she could be praying. When we worship our loved ones we can fall into our own pattern of giving too much of ourselves to them.”
Parker is no stranger to collaboration and artistic challenge and it’s truly exhilarating to watch an artist genre-hop with such skill and ease. Not only has she got lots of music and visual content in store for 2021 for this project, she is also working with charming indie pop band Runaway Belles and also with Adam Ouston (COSTUME) on a new project, FM2030, inspired by the late futurist and father of Transhumanism of the same name. Fans will be thrilled with the diversity of the art and passion behind the work that this ultra talent has to share in 2021.
Lie Low is released today, March 8 – International Women’s Day 2021.
