Sister Ray Is Both Flesh and Myth on "Animal Thing"

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year-end list-making Teeth EP, Coyes is caught within "the liminal space between wanting to know someone and knowing them," they explained in a press release. "I've gotta go home / I've got good work to do," they repeat in their signature steely warble atop a loping finger-picked chord progression and delay-heavy piano. "Gonna look at you / Decide there's good work to do."

Doing as Sister Ray does, they capture the hope and fear and joy and sadness of a moment on the precipice, where the future of unknowns is scary and shimmering with possibility; for love and loss, ultimately, or one too many beers. "I will make you indispensable," Coyes promises. "How can you not know that I'm afraid of denying you that happiness?"

(Royal Mountain Records)
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