“De Souza is an undeniable force.”
Pitchfork
“It always amazes me that someone can take their pain and turn it into not only healing energy but a catchy tune with a positive force, and that’s what Indigo De Souza has done with a song powerfully titled ‘Kill Me’”
NPR’s Bob Boilen, All Songs Considered
“Intense lyricism sung with a vibrant casualness… Her voice is confident and unrelenting.”
Stereogum, Artist To Watch
“‘Kill Me’ sounds like an exposed nerve of uncomfortable intimacy… It’s a hell of a track, the kind you don’t soon forget.”
The AV Club, The Best Songs of 2021 So Far
“De Souza’s sing-song vocals are captivating when nearly whispered — but even more so when roared, as the song evolves into a rock banger.”
Billboard
“Indigo De Souza captures hearts with her unruly vocals and stinging lyrics deliver”
Nylon
“If ‘Kill Me’ is any indication at all, Any Shape You Take is going to be a stunner. She layers lyrics that are at turns harrowing, funny, horny, relatable, or all of the above at once.”
Paste, The Best Songs of June 2021
“A bittersweet and super catchy song filled with heartfelt emotion and comically exaggerated sentiment.”
The FADER, The Best Rock Songs Right Now
Today, Indigo De Souza releases “Real Pain,” the latest single from her anticipated new album Any Shape You Take. The track features a collage of voices culled from fans that De Souza received after posting online asking for “screams, yells and anything else.”
“‘Real Pain’ is about facing grief and loss and having compassion for yourself in that space. It’s about learning to be unafraid of experiencing a full spectrum of emotion, and welcoming the way it teaches you and changes you,” De Souza says of the song. “For one of the sections in the song, I put out an invitation for people to anonymously send me voice memos of “screams, yells, and anything else”. I layered the voices on top of one another to embody a kind of collective experience. I felt an incredible catharsis hearing their voices stacked with mine. While we live such separate lives, we are connected in the way that we all navigate immense amounts of pain and love and fear in our bodies every day. It can be hard to be a person! It’s okay to acknowledge that sometimes. It’s okay to feel things fully and to allow others space to do the same.“
Any Shape You Take, produced by De Souza and Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee), is available for pre-order now and out August 27th via Saddle Creek.
Indigo De Souza is scheduled to play a full band livestream this Thursday Aug 12 for Bowery Presents’ Twitch channel live from Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NYC.
LISTEN TO “REAL PAIN”
WATCH THE VIDEOS FOR PREVIOUSLY RELEASED SINGLES
On Any Shape You Take, Indigo De Souza explores the human relationship to change, the rigid forces that prevent it and ultimately the freedom that comes with it. She has always grown up in a world of contradictions, raised in a small conservative town in the mountains of North Carolina, but with a Brazillian Bossa Nova guitarist father and visual artist mother (who created the album art for both her debut and Any Shape You Take). Her mother encouraged her to channel her shyness and feelings of being an outsider into art and bought her a guitar. She began playing guitar herself at 9 and writing songs by 11. Art and music pushed her to seek out a broader community and to also pursue her own internal exploration. Moving to Asheville at age 16 gave her the community and freedom she was after. It also brought her to a renowned group of musicians including Brad Cook, who together with De Souza produced Any Shape You Take. With Cook and engineers/producers Alex Farrar and Adam McDaniel, Indigo recorded the new album at Betty’s, Sylvan Esso’s studio in Chapel Hill, NC allowing her to move past the limitations of a home studio.
After the self-release of her debut album I Love My Mom, De Souza went out on supporting tours for Alex G, Beach Bunny and Hippo Campus. Her incredible stage presence helped develop a community of dedicated fans. The album has clocked nearly 8 million streams to date. At the forefront of all of De Souza’s projects is her magnetism—her unique quality of spirit that is both buoyant and wise and the freedom she gives herself to explore all of her multitudes. With Any Shape You Take we see an artist fearlessly pushing boundaries and relaying her journey of self-discovery in frank terms. It’s this admixture of honesty and pliability that makes De Souza one of the most exciting artists to watch this year.