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Live Review: Premiere: Soft Touch finds beauty through texture on 'Empty'

27 March 2019 | 11:54 am | Caitlin Medcalf

GRACE STEVENSON is arguably one of the busiest creatives in town. Aside from her thumping techno project Rebel Yell and her part in 100%, she's a designer and photographer too. She's also got another project, SOFT TOUCH, which sees her distancing herself from the industrial soundscapes of Rebel Yell and embracing softer, mellow sounds.

As Soft Touch, she's got her debut EP, Empty Lovers, set to come out in late April via Tender Collection, an artist run, queer-feminist label. Today we're premiering 'Empty', the second taste of what's to come from the EP, and it comes with a clip created by Stevenson herself.

Playing with neat strings and developing a beautifully harmonic autotune on her vocals, the mood of the track shifts as the strings dip in and out of the melody. Without the strings, the thumping kick takes the lead and brings it into an entirely different emotional territory altogether.

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The textural music video accompanying the track gives visual colour and flow to the instrumental. Armed with a handycam and natural linens, the clip plays with bodily textures and fluid movement and in the process, finds beauty in simplicity.

Of the project, Stevenson said that it "began as my new start in a fresh city among a lot of other life changes. The album is about being in control of my body and choices and the consequences that come from that for both myself and others around me."

Soft Touch's Empty Lovers will be available late April on a small run of cassettes, which are up for pre-order here.

SOFT TOUCH EP LAUNCH

Friday, April 26

w/ Purient, Curt Island and Not Bodies

Nighthawks, Melbourne

Sunday, May 12

w/ Marcus Not Singing, Ex Rental and Alien Abduction Fantasy (CBR)

Petersham Bowls Club (Downstairs), Sydney

Words by CAITLIN MEDCALF

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