Today, Petite League – the lofi pop project led by NY-based musician Lorenzo Gillis Cook – shares the incredible new single “East River Swimmer.” It’s the first new track since the group’s stunning sixth album Thrill Seekers last October, which we listed as one of our favorite albums of 2022 due to its earnest composition and evocative narratives. Thrill Seekers, according to Gillis Cook, was about “appreciating whatever makes your heart beat, growing through your tears of joy, and accepting change by going head-on into it while also forgetting what keeps you grounded in the first place.” In turn, the album wore its heart on its sleeve, with carefully written, charming tracks dedicated to the trials and tribulations of falling in love, getting hurt, and learning to pick yourself back up again. Ultimately, however, Thrill Seekers felt most like a perfectly curated montage, a glimpse into an artist’s past and the events in their life that made them who they are.
And now, with “East River Swimmer,” there’s another single to add to Petite League’s stellar discography, one that effortlessly expresses the beauty of simply being, living, breathing in the world at the same time one is manifesting something bigger, better, and, most importantly, authentic. Amidst slightly grungy, slightly jangly lofi guitar, Gillis Cook describes seeing Frank Ocean riding his BMX bike on Bowery Street in NY in the first verse, noting that he was “Happy to be out/ Happy to not be seen.” Gillis Cook explains that he himself was doing something similar: “just crossing the road/ Fashionably unknown.” The track’s melody remains joyful but stable, laying a foundation for wholesome aspiration; “I’ve been swimming in my head too long / Now I need the real thing,” Gillis Cook explains. Returning to the start, he repeats this again with unwavering conviction, as personal telos, rather than a fleeting desire: “Happy to be out, to be free / Now I need the real thing.”
“East River Swimmer” is out now.
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photo courtesy of artist
kid with a vinyl 