Following up on previous effort ‘Choosing Myself’, Hungarian creative særa returns with an introspective cut, ‘bathtubs & cigarettes’, a single that keenly veers towards poppier melodies and kinetic production. Made by særa in Budapest in collaboration with NYPE, the track shares a strong retro allure, too. We find it intriguing how she’s able to work in such a variety of genres and settings; some would say that særa is still finding her voice, but we feel as though such eclecticism IS her voice. She’s a shape-shifting talent, constantly adapting to her many inspirations and influences.
The song is steeped in personal experience; in fact, it serves as a cathartic moment for særa, allowing her to look back and reflect on a difficult time, dealing with the coping mechanism she used throughout it. In a way, that’s what ‘bathtubs & cigarettes’ is about, evoking this imagery of steam, vapour, haziness. The record’s dream pop livery goes a long way in delivering a hypnotic aural fever.
Delving deeper into the lyrical ethos that propels the song, særa explains: “I was having one of the worst and hardest months emotionally this past 6 months; I went through losing my dad to cancer. Smoking in the bathtub sort of became my refuge from the daily struggles. There is an element of self-destruction when you’re like, ‘f— it, this man has been living an exemplary healthy life, and this illness came for him; I am not gonna stress about cigarettes.’ I know it’s not really exemplary, but it was what it was for this time period.”
Recommended! Discover ‘bathtubs & cigarettes’ now: