Last month, Pllush released “Shannon,” the first woozy single from their upcoming debut album Stranger To The Pain, which is set for release on June 8. The Bay-area dream-pop four piece is sharing “Ortega” today, a new track that’s equally as invigorating and kaleidoscopic, with a subject matter that’s as dizzying as the song sounds: the endearing sloppiness of growing up.
If there’s anything that the budding band’s two singles so far have proven, it’s that they’re seasoned connoisseurs of intricately curating a mood and launching the listener into a wistful daze. Each verse of “Ortega” pulses and strains as singer Eva Treadway lists off situations that have sent every young adult into a panic at one point or another: losing a job, crying in the bathroom at a party that went wrong. And then the chorus hits, and it sweeps swiftly into a fluttering, freeing, hopeful ascent: “But it’s a true word under a harsh light / And it’s a new world clenching my hands tight.”
About the song, Treadway told The Fader:
“‘Ortega’ is about being 19 years old. It’s about meeting a lot of friends who changed my life and this weird where you are kind of on the edge of adulthood and everything is really beautiful and scary. It’s about building connections with people and getting drunk in parking lots and trying to figure out how to be an adult.”
Stranger To The Pain is out 6/8 via Father/Daughter Records. Pre-order it here.
