Myra Keyes releases new album: Flower in the Brick

It’s a first for the young singer-songwriter Myra Keyes: Flower in the Brick’s eight tracks are an association of indie-rock and punk, with a hint of shoegaze. Recorded at Jackpot! Studio in Portland, Oregon, the album is both brutal and melodic.

Two years after the release of her first EP, Girl Reimagined, Myra wanted to release an album with more urgency and, therefore, a stronger rhythmic section: "Going in,” she says, “I knew this record needed to have drums. I don't play drums, so I was on the lookout for someone who could come into the studio and smash it. Kendra [co-producer] recommended Joe Mengis of the band Eels, and boy, he did just that. I also had Anna Fritz of Portland Cello Project play on the last track. Her cello part is one of the highlights of the album for me. And Joe's drumming, my goodness."

Although she admits that there is no overarching concept to the record, except for “love, girlhood, and bathtub thoughts,” Keyes sets out to make her songs colourful, due to her synesthesia: “I tried to write and produce every song to be a different colour,” she explains.

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Keyes has been keeping busy, this past year: she went back to recording right after the release of her first EP, managing to put out Flower in the Brick while finishing high school, applying to colleges, working a summer job, and getting into Loyola University in Chicago in the fall of 2023 as a business major. The young artist jokes: "it was a whirlwind year, to put it mildly."

Myra Keyes' debut full-length album Flower in the Brick is already available for streaming.