Every week, the Milwaukee Music Premiere connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
When a musician starts putting together their first album, it’s like scrolling back through a timeline. Songs, old and new, find their way into the project — and so do the events that fueled their creation.
Selecting “Skin” for debut LP Stay Soft took Ellie Jackson all the way back to 2016 and the days following the Sherman Park Uprising. At a time when anger and destruction received most of our attention, she took note of something else and poured it into the song that wound up being track eight on the new record.
“It's inspired by friends and neighbors who I saw — and continue to see — showing up for their communities in the face of violence,” she noted. “It’s also a reflection and a commitment to myself to stay open to learning and growing.”
Compared with the three album singles that preceded it, “Skin” sets a different sonic tone by looping Jackson’s delicate vocals, first solo and then with harmonious accompaniment:
Skin, your skin breaks, grows back again
Your skin, your skin breaks, grows back again
Your skin, your skin breaks, grows back again
It’s a somber yet compelling start that persists throughout the song, which bubbles with tension before finding some measure of releases in the choruses as Jackson sings:
If I ever choose to stay the same
Take me outside and read me anything
If I choose to stay the same
Take me outside, take me outside
The vocal performances and instrumentation are both on point, but it’s the little production flourishes that help the song reach a different level. A quick reversed vocal track right at the beginning, a few hand claps, eerie synth blips — they’re the dashes of spice that make the overall dish as good as it is.
The menu for Stay Soft keeps growing, with “Skin” being the fourth track you can enjoy via the player at the top of the page and on the 88Nine airwaves throughout today (6:30 and 10:30 a.m., 2:30 and 6:30 p.m.).
The three previous singles are all available on the Stay Soft Bandcamp page, where you can show some support for a wonderful Milwaukee artist by pre-ordering the album. Its official release day is Oct. 1, and Jackson will play a celebratory show the afternoon of Oct. 10 at Cactus Club before performing at Boone & Crockett’s Flannel Fest later that night.
