With the release of her 2016 debut, Fading Light, Dutch singer/songwriter and musician Annelotte de Graaf quickly received international attention for her solo recording project Amber Arcades, as thematically her material has largely drawn from both time and the relativistic experience of it, continuity, magic, jet lag and her own dreams; in fact, leading a life in which she’s followed her dreams, has informed much of the Dutch singer/songwriter and musician’s personal and creative life — because she had always dreamt of working for the UN, de Graaf eventually wound up working as a legal aide on UN war crime tribunals, and then followed it up by working in human rights law, assisting Syrian refugees. She also used her life savings for a flight to NYC and studio time to record Fading Lines with Ben Greenberg, who has worked with The Men, Beach Fossils and Destruction Unit, and a studio backing band that included Quilt‘s Shane Butler (guitar) and Keven Lareau (bass) and Real Esate‘s Jackson Pollis.
Building upon the buzz that she received for Fading Lines and a Fall tour with Nada Surf, de Graaf recently released her latest single “It Changes,” a propulsive single which interestingly enough reveals a decided change in sonic direction, as the song sounds as though it owes a debt to garage rock and post-punk, thanks in part to angular guitar chords played through effects pedals and an anthemic hook paired with de Graaf’s crooning. As de Graaf explains in press notes, the song is ultimately about life’s temporal nature. “Everything changes, all the time,” de Graaf says in press notes. “You think that when starting something new you can kinda tell which way it will go, but you never do. I always try to aim for constancy and stability but things always get messier than I foresaw. And hey, maybe that’s actually what makes it worthwhile.” As a result, while the song possesses a hopeful yet realistic take on life; suggesting that the recognition of messiness and uncertainty being a part of life and something you can learn from.