Premiere: Kara Frazier wades through pain to deliverance with debut EP, ‘Seven Ages’

You can really only collect strength and wisdom in dark, cavernous abysses. Seasons of such suffocating gloom ebb and flow as the tides whose silvering, glass-like surface is at the mercy of looming celestial bodies. You can wade the water as best you can, but when the light finally peeks up over the seemingly-detached horizon, a dividing line between the physical and the otherworldly, that’s when your transformation unlocks new hidden powers. Once a sorrowful whippoorwill, now an unstoppable beacon, Nashville’s soul-pop newcomer Kara Frazier untethers her limbs with her long-awaited debut EP, Seven Ages, a sky-bound manifesto of vocal prowess and sharp, relentless stories.

The project, premiering today, took two years to sculpt, discard and reimagine. Frazier’s savage daring was always the needle, weaving in and of soul, blues and pop, and has culminated in one of the most impressively ambitious bodies of work of 2019. In uncaging such ferocious imagery, as evidenced in the visual for lead-off single, the baptismal “Deliver Me,” which sees the storyteller completely shatter the very meaning of torch singing, Frazier not only sets herself free from ghosts of the past but calls the listener to rearrange their own lives. She’s a vision, to put it simply, and across four songs, co-produced by Michael Robinson, Jeff Lusk and Grammy winner Shannon Sanders (P!nk, John Legend, India.Arie) on various tracks, she weathers the storm and finally finds herself again. The light casts across her face, and for the first time in her life, she’s commanding the conversation.

“I was experiencing turmoil in my day job, met with some high points in my music and personal relationships, so this led to an interesting mix of songwriting for this EP,” Frazier tells B-Sides & Badlands. Shackle-rattling closer “Mother” was born out of an especially trying time, as her grueling day job began to take a considerable toll on her, ripping chunks out of her soul. “I was working 40-50 hours a week in a field that wasn’t my passion, while staying up late at night writing for my record and recording full-band sessions on the weekends or after work in the evening,” she says. The Alannah Myles-snapped weeper was the only hold-over from those transformative sessions and anchors her story with metallic pins and gutting musicality. “Wade in the water,” she caterwauls in a healthy mix of brassy horns and sticky satin sheets, thus cementing her stylistic breadth.

“Dirty Water” is a trembling pop romper dissecting how we, as flawed human beings, come to always fall short. “Sometimes we don’t mean to let them down, but things get in the way and repeat behaviors happen. It’s about the desire to be cleansed and the power of redemption,” she says. But in being so confrontational with herself, bleeding herself of toxins and other venomous agents, she sheds all guilt for a life of compassion and warmth. Then, “Heart of Stone,” which leans into the saucy black-spotted blues of Amy Winehouse, Gin Wigmore and Bessie Smith, rides the icy scars of a jaded heart, slinking along in gentle bubbles. Totally and unequivocally, the Seven Ages EP marks the start of a promising legacy career.

With “Deliver Me,” containing perhaps Frazier’s most unapologetic and searing vocal, was a watershed moment in its creation. “I remember staying late until 2 or 3 am at the studio during the writing and making. Then, I would head into work early the next morning. I was reaching the tail-end of my time at my day job ⏤ mostly because I stayed physically sick from exhaustion, struggling to keep up with a high-stress career job while pursuing a career in music,” she explains of the expedition to reshape the entire trajectory of her life, as well as uncover (or rediscover, rather) her true, most authentic perspective. “I was living this double-life that many entrepreneurs and artists experience before they dive fully into their passion. In hindsight, it was so worth it to find my sound and develop my songwriting skills. That time taught me so much and who I was surrounded by allowed me to maintain my sanity while developing my skills.”

Throughout the EP’s entirety, you feel her heart and soul unleashing every ounce of misery and cleansing her wounds in the music’s sweet fountain, crashing against the reality sweeping out in front of her. Frazier’s Seven Ages EP is a remarkable debut; from start to finish, there’s a very clear line drawn highlighting truths on recovery, absolution, womanhood and what it means to be alive. Frazier soars higher than ever thought possible, and she’ll deliver you, too, if you only let her.

Seven Ages EP drops tomorrow (March 9) via ONERPM.

Listen below:

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