Ashlynn Malia – MALIA Debut LP Out February 2, 2024 via Jullian Records

Photo by Austin Ciezsko

Ashlynn Malia – MALIA
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Ashlynn Malia – “Midas”
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Ashlynn Malia – “Cool Girl”
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Ashlynn Malia – “Nobody Else”
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Ashlynn Malia – “Feels So Good”
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LA-based indie-pop singer-songwriter Ashlynn Malia is in the midst of her self-described “ethereal pop era,” which she capitalizes today with the announcement of her long-awaited debut LP, MALIA, arriving February 2 via Jullian Records.

MALIA is all about exploration. The album starts with the experimental interlude “Avalanche,” a song that unravels from its spoken-word beginning into a drum and bass chorus where Malia muses about grief and how to leave the past behind. In “Cool Girl,” Malia wraps her anger and hurt into a pretty package with a bow on top, sonically being one of the chiller, vibier songs on the album, but lyrically one of the most gut wrenching. It’s deliberate, as the song discusses how detrimental it can be to feel like real emotions have no place in dating culture, and people are forced to keep their feelings digestible for the comfort of the people they’re with.

The album takes a sensual turn with “Midas” an ethereal take on sex, pleasure, and feeling wanted (needed, even) Malia knows what she deserves, ordering the subject to “touch me like you’re Midas, turn me into gold.” Arguably the happiest song on the album plays right in the middle. A refreshing summer pop banger, “Feels So Good” celebrates the excitement of new love, and the feeling of being magnetically drawn to someone else. That magnetism doesn’t go anywhere in the next song, “Nobody Else,” but it has changed from something that excites, to something that persists despite everything else in a relationship going wrong. Malia sings “I’ve been getting visions of your body on mine/ what am I to do?/ I thought I hated you…” In “Villain,” a song that begins acoustic and unassuming, but builds into the most electrifying dark pop track of the album, Malia asks herself who truly is to blame for the hurt she feels in a relationship. The project wraps up with Malia’s 2022 feature “Dying To Miss Out” by Kimtee.

As Malia says of her debut album, “I feel like this project is about stepping into myself, owning who I am fully, and embracing that I’m a work in progress. Just being totally along for the ride. I’m just writing about my life; trying to build a world of art and beauty out of my personal experiences. There’s so much excitement around it.”