Keepsake of the Week: “Surrender Me” by AERI
“Surrender Me” is the latest single from Brooklyn based singer/songwriter AERI and is this week’s #KOTW.
In this semi-weekly blog series, we post our favorite new or re-discovered releases in independent music, our Keepsake of the Week, or #KOTW.
It’s time to surrender yourselves to the music of AERI. The Brooklyn based singer/songwriter—who we first saw at her EP release show last summer and who performed in our most recent show, Lighting Sparks–announced a few weeks ago that she had new music coming. Today, the first single has arrived.
On this difficult day (I’m writing this on the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court), it is a relief to have new music from AERI to soak in and through which to celebrate moments of intimacy and queer love. AERI describes this soft, sensual song as “an ode to the prowess of surrender—giving into the healing bounty of queer love” and “a tender dreamscape.” The cover is a gorgeous photograph of her entangled and locked-eyed with her partner. AERI’s voice—which is both the first and last thing you hear on the track, as if she is whispering directly to you through the quiet—sings, “Turn me inside out / Surrender me / Expose every crease / Hungry for the heat of your body.” The repeating rhythm and longing lyrics of Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” meet the simple truths of k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving” and the brimming sexual desire of Troye Sivan’s “BITE” in “Surrender Me.”
The first single to follow AERI’s eponymously named debut EP, “Surrender Me” is a great sign of more magic to come. It grows upon themes from the EP and is especially reminiscent of that record’s song, “River,” which is also my favorite on the record. Both tracks use metaphors of nature to express the physicality of emotions. “Surrender Me” includes lyrics like “Mountains make promises / That fold under the wind” and “Reveal each weathered palm / To the tides of your body.” It revisits the tides in one of AERI’s best lines, an anthemic one for the queer community, “Sometimes the tides won’t rise, babe / Dive in with me headfirst into uncertainty.”
“Surrender Me” also points toward new directions for AERI’s music. The bridge is mostly instrumental but has a beautiful line of backing vocals that are indeed as dreamy as she describes. The abrupt ending feels like letting out a deep, satisfied breath. In this single and surely the record that we are awaiting, AERI’s voice hypnotizes and her music will be running through our heads like a river all summer long.
Stream “Surrender Me” everywhere now and see AERI perform tomorrow, Saturday June 25 at Asian Creatives + Entrepreneurs: Celebr-Asian of Love Pop-up Market in Industry City, Brooklyn.
AERI, photographed by Cindy Trinh.
