Nina Grollman abandoned a burgeoning career as a successful actress on Broadway to become Softee.
After gaining plaudits for some self-released material, ‘Natural’ is the Brooklyn based artist’s first formally-released album.
It is a sugar rush of post-pandemic emotion charting the demise of one relationship and the birth of another. The album’s emotional ark takes the listener from the painful extinction of an old flame to the fiery bliss of new love.
Speaking of the vulnerability she expresses, Softee says “I was too raw to have the energy to put on a facade for anyone.”
Musically its a blend of R&B, funk, hip hop and, above all, 80s/90s pop. The recording was co-produced by Jeremy Chinn (aka sweetbbyj) in a Berlin studio. As Softee’s mother is German (she was raised bilingual), being in Berlin felt like a sort of homecoming.
The ten-track, 30 minute record opens with the heartfelt balladry of The Floor and Isn't Enough before launching into a series of more beat-driven songs.
The video for Molly is described as ”a lust-fuelled, dance party of pure queer joy” and its sexed up energy matches lyrics that begin with “Turn the lights off put the music on/Let’s pop this pill under the disco ball/Tonight I wanna dance with you and get all the way down.”
This libidinous mood is also to be found in Come Home (”I wanna feel your sweet surrender”) and makes for an effective contrast with the hurt conveyed in the album’s centrepiece, Grief, which boasts a wonderfully expansive percussion and horn arrangement.
The synth rhythms of Red Light Green Light and funk grooves of U + Me (WDYT) encapsulate Softee’s endearing approach to music and life: “feeling the anxiety but sort of dancing wildly through it.”
