In 2016, TRACE brought her first indie project, the Low – EP, to life through a Kickstarter campaign. The 4-track piece earned her comparisons to the “west-coast cool of Lana Del Rey” and the “R&B-kissed ruminations of James Blake,” as well as over 20M streams and her first record deal. This then led to her first record deal with SONY and Ultra Records in 2018, with the release of her single “Blood and Bones,” followed by two more singles: “Side Eye”, featuring on The Fader’s fall list of “Best New Pop Songs”) and “Anxiety.”
Her multicultural upbringing has had a massive impact on TRACE’s songwriting and the vulnerability of her potent lyricism cuts through the noise. With over 55 million streams across streaming platforms such as Spotify’s “Indie Pop,” “API Pride, “All New Indie,” and Apple’s “Chill Pop” as well as press support from the likes of Teen Vogue, NYLON and Forbes, she now returns in 2023 with a brand new EP ‘The End Of A Feeling’ with stunning lead single ‘Too Much’.
Leaning more into the R&B side of her craft, ‘Too Much’ is versatile, smooth, and full of care. Her songwriting lends structure and feel-good ambience to emotions she captures so well, inviting you to feel, and then feel again. The melancholic slice of alt-pop production further ensues that emotional strand of what makes TRACE so captivating, with her soft yet commanding vocal and pop-woven melodies hitting that sweet spot between R&B, indie and pop.
Innovative and soothing all at once, TRACE has created her own sound world in ‘Too Much’, in a body of work that seems to fully encompass everything that she now represents as an artist. The track captures a certain feeling of rawness through the smooth, sultry vocal delivery amongst the polished production that ebbs and flows with such guile. ‘Too Much’ is another big statement from TRACE, as she looks to once again reinstate herself as one of the most exciting artists in pop.
She says “TOO MUCH” is the purest form of sadness on my EP. I wrote this from a place of acceptance that “too much” isn’t a bad thing, but a necessary thing to get to the place of honesty and truth about oneself and about others. TOO MUCH is about admitting hurt, which coincides with a sense of pride being softened. It also feels like a song that is more about me and less about anyone or anything else. It introduces hints of R&B the rest of the record doesn’t really present but I think I wanted to subdue the emotions a bit. Causing perhaps a desire to reflect and move on.”
