Born in Ontario and currently calling the mountains of British Columbia home, Ruby Waters has always viewed music as a cauldron of influences and experiences colored in various hues through the tidal forces of her own emotional perception. Drawing as much from Nirvana as she does from Rihanna, her sonic experiments aren’t simple excursions through recognizable inspirations – rather, they’re complex aural adaptations. Nothing is off limits for her, which gives her the ability to mold and blurs genres as she pleases. She folds together elements of dream pop, R&B, alt rock, and soul into a perspective of fluid musical impressionism.
On the heels of recent singles, “Get a Grip” and “6 Feet Under”, Waters has announced the upcoming release of her sophomore record, SUPPRE$$IONS, a treatise on how we are shaped and influenced by bad habits and questionable choices — the overwhelming sensation of losing yourself to the external pressures of the world and how those cascading sensations threaten to dissolve the core of you we are. Born in those mountains of British Columbia, these songs helped her acknowledge the reality which was inevitably positioning itself around her, allowing her to find room for her own voice in a sea of unfiltered noise.
She speaks to the nature of external suppression, itself a guiding motivation in how this album was forged, and how it molds the way we see ourselves and can often limit the self-realization that often comes with experience. “It’s the act of holding back or preventing something from developing, functioning, being seen, or being expressed,” Waters says.
She continues: “The album is about hanging on to old habits that prevent me from becoming a better version of myself. It’s also about the pressures of being seen by the world and wanting to hide like a little crab underwater in a safe little shell — being weighed down, almost underwater, by suppressed emotions.”
The album was recorded over the last couple of years with frequent collaborators Sam Jackson Willows (The Beaches, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie), Harper (Burna Boy, Russ), TJ Whitelaw (John Legend, Syd) Zach Zanardo (Monowhales), ALP (MSTRKFT, Death From Above 1979) and mastering engineer Alec Ness (Alabama Shakes, Sam Smith). This 20-song self-reflective thesis doesn’t sugarcoat the darkness and struggles which have occasionally roamed through her life.
“I’ve been dealing with addiction and mental health issues for a very long time,” admits Waters. “This album stems from wanting to change or being in limbo between wanting to change and building up the courage to do so. Learning to accept all of these feelings, wants, and needs instead of suppressing them.”
On her latest single, “PAY AS YOU GO”, she examines the stress and intense pressure that can come from the weight of financial limitations, that sense of being held in place by things beyond your control. She finds nuance in familiar environments, illuminating a universal feeling of frustration by taking an intimate look in the mirror. The song’s pop veneer is wrapped in a melancholy awareness, anchored by Waters’ compelling voice let loose across miles of gauzy melodies. And while there’s more than a bit of cynicism laying beneath its polished veneer, the song never falls into outright hopelessness, proving that the burdens we face can be overcome – and we can maintain our momentum forward.
Regarding the track, Waters explains, “It’s about the struggle everyone is fucking feeling in this economy.”
Watch the video for “PAY AS YOU GO” below.
SUPPRE$$IONS is due out January 15 via Wet Records.
