New single You Win from San Francisco-based electro-pop duo New Spell drips with tumbling echoes and graceful vocal figures: an inroad to relationship tension and seeing lies for what they are. Lead line “And so, lies you win” resonates at the forefront, and vocalist/songwriter Leanne Kelly recalls the moment when the line and melody first spontaneously popped into her head, after which she followed the thread and found a song on the other end.
Alongside a remarkable new music video directed by Japhy Riddle and Brendan Bellomo, the track deals, appropriately, with psychological defense mechanisms: the “lies,” neither good nor bad, which are employed subconsciously to get through each day. Writing music as a form of personal catharsis, Kelly herself is aware of how important it is for people to hear music and understand that they’re not alone in their struggles.
“I’ve had some emotional struggles and tend to be a little on the darker side of things,” says Kelly. “Music, for me, when I’ve gone through hard times, has literally saved my life.”
