Danish artist PALLAS has released her debut EP, Elsewhere today. Throughout the EP’s five songs, PALLAS manages to put into words one of the most prevalent problems of her generation: loneliness. Listen to the powerful release now below.
“It can seem strange to feel lonely when you have lots of friends, a strong and supportive family and a good job. Why would you feel alone when everything tells you that you should be on top?” PALLAS – 24-year-old Nora Mølgaard Jakobsen – asks, hitting the head on the symptomatic nail for large parts of an entire generation of young people who are weighed down by constant comparisons with others on social media. Studies show that 26% of children and young people in Denmark often or sometimes feel lonely. “I feel like people around me are doing a lot of cool things and that I’m falling behind. It leaves me with a little nagging feeling that I can best describe as loneliness and FOMO.”
But rather than letting it get her down, Nora has tried to use her songwriting as a kind of antidote: “I thought it would be fun if you used the songs to create a musical place where you actually preferred to be. A playground opened up in these songs, and some of the lyrics became very surrealistic, and that’s just a lot of fun to work with,” she laughs.
Nora currently lives in Copenhagen, but grew up in the small Funen town of Tommerup just outside Odense. At the age of 11, she reali- sed that she had to follow in her parents’ and older brother’s footsteps and enter the world of music. Although she has in many ways been shaped by the idyllic island of Funen, it is especially the warm American blend of pop and quirky RnB that has shaped her musically. This can clearly be heard on the two lead singles ‘Summer’ and ‘4 Walls’, which have given her a lot of buzz on Da- nish radio in the run-up to the EP release.
Musically, PALLAS has succeeded in creating a universe permeated by elements such as intense chorus guitar, inventive bass lines and innovative vocal productions that alternate between an ultra-organic sound and effects-heavy chops.
In addition to the lead singles ‘4 Walls’ and ‘Summer’, the EP also features the intro song ‘El- sewhere’, which opens up PALLAS’ quirky and alluring world. On the love song ‘Camouflage’, she waltzes along in six-eighths while reminiscing about a failed relationship. On ‘Dazed’, the pace picks up dramatically, and on the song’s infectious chorus, PALLAS verbalises feeling trap- ped in the stress, frustrations and confusion of her mind.
Although the common denominator on ‘Elsewhere’ is the feeling of being completely LOST, PALLAS is anything but in a musical sense.