Today, Fashion Club, the alias of Los Angeles-based artist Pascal Stevenson, has announced her highly anticipated sophomore album, A Love You Cannot Shake, due out October 25th via Felte Records. Lead single “Forget,” the steamy art-pop track with country-inspired harmonies from Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas, is a conversation between Stevenson and her past self about the power of overcoming struggles. “It’s trying to love a version of myself that I’ve spent so long trying to distance from,” Stevenson says. “But it’s also a recognition that if I drift too far away from the version of myself that I see as really flawed, I might forget the things about myself that I felt I needed to change.”
Though A Love You Cannot Shake is the first album that explicitly addresses her transness, it’s not so much a “coming out” record or a confessional, straightforward tell-all as it is a tastefully abstract distillation of her personal experiences and identities into stirring vignettes that anyone can relate to. Whether it’s the search for self-worth in a society that only values humanity in its relation to capital (“Confusion”), the uncomfortably circular nature of self-growth (“Forget”) or the self-destructive urge to make up for “lost time” (“Ghost”), this LP is rooted in the universal truth that self-actualization is always worth pursuing. Tracks often begin from a place of discomfort and shame, but by the end, they tend to arrive at a more patient, hopeful frame of mind, as Stevenson cherishes the authenticity of a more amorphous emotionality.
Though A Love You Cannot Shake is the first album that explicitly addresses her transness, it’s not so much a “coming out” record or a confessional, straightforward tell-all as it is a tastefully abstract distillation of her personal experiences and identities into stirring vignettes that anyone can relate to. Whether it’s the search for self-worth in a society that only values humanity in its relation to capital (“Confusion”), the uncomfortably circular nature of self-growth (“Forget”) or the self-destructive urge to make up for “lost time” (“Ghost”), this LP is rooted in the universal truth that self-actualization is always worth pursuing. Tracks often begin from a place of discomfort and shame, but by the end, they tend to arrive at a more patient, hopeful frame of mind, as Stevenson cherishes the authenticity of a more amorphous emotionality.
TRACK LISTING
1. Faith
2. Confusion
3. Forget (feat. Perfume Genius)
4. Ghost (feat. Jay Som)
5. Enough
6. One Day
7. Ice Age
8. Deny
9. Rotten Mind (feat. Julie Byrne)
10. Deify