Zella Day's 'Purple Haze' Is The Perfect Sun Drenched Single.
By Maria Kornacki
Summer is coming to a close as the Arizona-born, California-based musician, Zella Day, showers us in the rays of her new record. Her forthcoming EP, Where Does The Devil Hide, is out August 28 via Concord Records and Easy Eye Sound. In the meantime, Zella Day’s “Purple Haze” is the sun kissed single her patient followers were craving.
The singer-songwriter is riding a steady wave of her own with her recent trio of musical releases. Day is no stranger (pun intended with her recent single, “People Are Strangers”) to Psychedelic sounds, especially with her current music, and these tracks are a great example of this. Over the past five years since her debut album, Kicker, Zella Day has been compared to the likes of Lana Del Rey, Fleetwood Mac, and Dusty Springfield. She also gave fans an ABBA flare on disco-inspired “My Game.” Nonetheless, her aesthetic is still undefined as she grows fluid in her experimental approach to music creation. Zella’s self-assured cover of Hot Chocolate’s 70’s pop hit, “You Sexy Thing,” accompanied by an untamed music video, was just a sweet taste of the music she’s been perfecting.
Trance-like melodies and trippy kaleidoscope visuals in “Purple Haze” lift the listener off the ground, and possibly even out of this world.
“When I lived in downtown LA, I would hum this melody while strolling to the market in the mood for something sweet,” Day says about the track. “All of those perfect Saturdays with nothing to do but eat oranges and daydream.”
The sitar riff on the track enhances the simplistic storytelling of the track, as well as the new sonic direction Zella appears to be delving into. Listeners weren’t too far off in pinpointing Zella’s musical influences, which notably stem from her artistic West Coast surroundings, as well as cinema. For example, Day’s upcoming EP was produced by Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and the music video for “Purple Haze” was directed by artist Neil Krug (Tame Impala, Lana Del Rey).
Zella Day is leaving a retro haze as she trails off into the horizons of sound discovery. We’ll be following close behind as the journey unfolds.