Neon Blue

Neon Blue is a nighttime song. It's a song you hear when you roll into a small town that just feels depressed -- not financially, but in spirit. It's about that evening moment where the neon signage buzzes on and the strange, effervescent quality that hangs in the air when nighttime comes -- and how that energy can just make a place change. It's Neon Blue, as in the bar lights, but also like the light inside of the living room where you watch TV in the dark alone.Neon Blue is the first collaboration between Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso, Mountain Man) and guitarist/producer Blake Mills, two longtime mutual admirers. Meath wrote the lyrics and melody for Neon Blue in one go, on the plane from Durham to Los Angeles; the pair subsequently recorded in one session at Sound City in LA. Then it bloomed into something more exploratory, with Mills and Meath re-opening the song and prodding at it every few months until they finished it.Neon Blue unfolds quietly and strangely, like the way a certain scent or lighting hitting your face can conjure the outline of a memory that hovers just out of frame. Mills' signature fretless baritone guitar and a few sparse embellishments build the song's foundation, a chasm between instrumentation and Meath's delicate voice.