Esme Patterson is returning with her first new music in almost four years, since her critically acclaimed 2016 album We Were Wild, with the laid back synth-laden dream-pop track “Light In Your Window”.
Videos by American Songwriter
The song marks her first for BMG and was recorded with fellow Coloradans Tennis in their garage in Denver. Patterson eschews the folk influences on her earlier recordings, which lead to her partnership with Tennis and has spawned this at once raw yet expansive and captivating sound.
This release is a natural evolution from her last album the new song leans even further into dream pop, R&B and indie rock. “Light In Your Window” delves into complicated desire, the desire for a person, a feeling, a space in time that no longer exists, and the desire to move on. Patterson holds these seemingly contradictory feelings, playing with them on the song.
Speaking to the genesis of the track Patterson says; “The idea (and the name) for the song “Light in Your Window” came to me when driving with my friend Martin past his ex-girlfriend’s house. He reflexively looked up to her bedroom window to see if the light was on, and then was angry with the muscle-memory that had made him do so. He expressed the melancholy caused by the slowness with which healing processes can sometimes move. I had been going through a breakup as well and poured some of my feelings into that metaphor and it became a song! For me, it is a song about longing for the end of longing. I think the feeling of the song is best exemplified by these words from Ursula K LeGuin- ‘To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.’ – from her perfect novel Left Hand of Darkness””
Patterson will be playing New York at Mercury Lounge with Ali Barter on November 19th. Tickets for the Mercury Lounge show are available here.
