Xenia Rubinos has released a few singles since her excellent 2016 album Black Terry Cat, but we’re hopefully now on the build up to her next record with today’s release of a new song called “Did My Best”. Rubinos’ introduction to the song might have some explanation as to what’s been ailing her in the last few years:
“This is a song about a sudden loss and wishing to see this person you never got to say goodbye to again. I remember the moment when I felt I was done singing, it’s like when you cry so hard you forget why you were crying in the first place. As we listened back, the hairs on my arms and legs stood straight up, I felt my face getting hot. I suddenly felt that old familiar feeling. In that moment, in the basement during an eerie quarantine night of fireworks and ambulance sirens I suddenly remembered why I sing.”
Eschewing the vibrance that has characterised her previous work, “Did My Best” is a bold production that takes us right into her dejected mindset. Pulsating synth forms the core while her vocoded voice takes centre stage, its coldness amplifying the deep well of sadness that she’s expressing. Without much of a hook, it might not at first be the most approachable of Rubinos’ songs, but the sheer vulnerability and clarity of the memories she recalls make “Did My Best” worthy of multiple plays to pick out all the special little details in production and storytelling.
On the video for “Did My Best”, directed and edited by Mario Rubén Carrión, she says:
“I felt that making this video was my own healing ritual. It’s my wish that this song can be a resting place for somebody’s feelings, that they can feel themselves inside of it and wrap themselves up in it when they need to.”
Watch the video below or listen to the song on streaming platforms.
Xenia Rubinos’ new single is out via ANTI-. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
