CLASSICALLY TRAINED COMPOSER & OPERA SINGER SHARES NEW SINGLE “PARASITE”

New York based performer and composer, Melody English embraces humor, longing, and defiance, in her dynamic and soulful body of work. Balancing her studious classical education and her romantic and risk-taking creativity, Melody’s music is multidimensional, but brutally genuine. Intriguing to fans of musical auteurs and pop-radio listeners alike, Melody’s songs are complex but digestible by design.

With the release of her new single “Parasite,” Melody returns with full force on her most self-assured track to date. The song’s cutting lyrics are inspired by a power struggle and the corrosive nature of love. The Fiona Kane and Richard Smith directed music video was shot discretely within the setting of the philharmonic orchestra she currently contributes to, and captures the duality of Melody’s inner and outer world.

Borrowing from the sonic pallet of Soundgarden and This Mortal Coil, “Parasite” is featherweight but delivered like a ton of bricks.

While her early years were shaped by her transient upbringing, moving around the American West as a child with her mom and brother, she found structure and discipline in rigorous classical training. Melody sang in choirs from childhood onward and studied operatic singing throughout her formative years. Melody focused almost solely on classical music from ages 15 to 24, immersing herself in the sounds and emotions of composers like Arnold Schoenberg and Aaron Copland. The framework of music theory helped create rules for her understanding of music, which Melody could eventually dismantle and repurpose in her own songwriting. Despite feeling pride in her training, her archaic repertoire disconnected her from her peers, and Melody felt the urge to start a band after college to explore more modern styles of music.

Melody began experimenting with more contemporary sounds with her first project, Godly Hemlines (an anagram of her name), before moving to Brooklyn in 2017. In New York, Melody found a cohort of burgeoning musicians performing their own unique music in bars, venues, and unconventional spaces, and she felt inspired to take her personal music a step further. Her flirtation with pop production came to a head as she began work on her solo debut, Melody, with help from her friend Joe Valley and her cousin Dan English, who moved to New York around the same time. Melody’s robust vocal chops and creative arrangements point to her formal education, but are achieved with a result that more closely resembles her contemporary hero's PJ Harvey, Lucinda Williams, and D’Angelo.

During the years of no live shows and social distancing Melody embarked on a new project with her best friend and collaborator, Sam Glick, called Test Subjects. Their 2021 album Study, is like a clinical trial in making accessible music from esoteric elements produced by the duo in an apartment laboratory. Catchy and comedic samples are effortlessly woven together with Melody’s saccharine vocals and touching lyrics. The process of making the record gave Melody a new outlook on her approach to recording that would inform the next phase of her own solo music.