Grace Gardener releases debut EP “Peach”

All photos courtesy of @cassidyophotos

Austin-based, indie-folk singer-songwriter artist Grace Gardner released her debut EP Peach on March 3. From start to finish the EP is heartbreaking, introspective, and comforting. Peach is a perfect display of Gardner’s gut-wrenching lyricism, plucky guitar pieces, and amazing storytelling.

Peach opens with the cinematic track “Deny Me” telling a story of bone-aching want, and closes with the comforting “Designated Driver” that speaks to all the small things you begin to love about someone, yet acknowledging you two are not meant to be. The four-track EP displays Gardner’s innate talent and how in tune she is with her emotions.

At a press conference held by Gardner on Feb. 23, she said that she was very hands-on in the production process of this EP, and this is absolutely reflected in how authentic and raw each track feels. The way each song moves through the emotions Gardner discusses, reaching a crescendo and falling once more in tandem with the rise and fall of Gardner’s feelings, is something that really hits home.

Each track of Peach feels cinematic, and Gardner expressed that if she were to have her music featured in a piece of media, she would select a queer narrative. “I feel like I resonated a lot with the turmoil of Casey and Izzy’s relationship in ‘Atypical,’” she shared, adding that she’d love to see a Casey and Izzy fan edit to her songs. 

Gardner has always spoken to music as a musical outlet for her to express herself: “‘Deny Me’ was really important to my healing from that heartbreak at that point [...] and then I just released ‘Parcel’ as a final ‘screw you’ to the universe. So everything has really come at a good time, and I feel more in touch with my artistry with every release.” The catharsis that Gardner described is reflected in the devastating anger in “Parcel” or the stabbing hurt in “Acrobatics,” with each track representing her ripping a page out of her journal. Gardner also expressed that music and this EP as a whole is a “processing project” for her healing journey, stating “I use songwriting really as a tool to just like gain understanding about the things around me.” 

The third track “Acrobatics” discusses the mental gymnastics you perform in situations that lack closure or clear communication. The almost four-minute track has a beautiful, echoey fingerstyle  guitar piece that feels reminiscent of Phoebe Bridgers’ “Garden Song.” The song is moving and aching, and listeners would never guess that Gardner wrote it entirely at the last minute.  She shared, “There was a last-minute inclusion of ‘Acrobatics.’ [...] It was three days before my EP was due and [me and my friend] just hammered it out. We wrote, produced, and mixed everything in eight hours and dropped it on the EP.”

Following Peach, Gardner said she hopes to create another music video and release an album either in the summer or fall: “I've been working really hard already on my album. I have like 50 songs written and ready to go. I just need to get them produced. It can be a really time-consuming process when I'm just doing it from my little Mac laptop.” Whilst awaiting the album, I urge everyone who enjoys “Sad Girl Music” to listen to Peach in all of its cathartic heartbreak.