Izzy Crawler Premieres ‘Born in a Shell’ from Debut Album ‘Creature Comforts’
Austin songwriter Izzy Crawler is preparing her debut album ‘Creature Comforts’, due November 20 through Darlington Records. Today we’re premiering its first single, ‘Born in a Shell’.
The song came out of the end of a relationship that had meant a great deal to her. As Crawler began to understand more about what had been happening, she was left not only with the loss itself, but with the uncomfortable feeling that she had misunderstood the person she had trusted.
“‘Born in a Shell’ is about the moment I stopped protecting myself through ambiguity and brought everything I was feeling into the open,” she says. “I had been afraid of what might happen if I made my feelings fully known, but eventually decided that if I was going to lose this person, I at least wanted to be completely honest about where I stood and give him the opportunity to see things from my perspective.”
That honesty did not bring the outcome she had hoped for.
“Instead, that vulnerability seemed to push him further away. The ‘shell’ belongs to him, reflecting my perception of someone deeply guarded and unwilling to fully expose himself, even when I had made myself completely transparent.”
Crawler sums it up simply: “The song is about realizing that honesty can reveal a relationship rather than repair it.”
Musically, ‘Born in a Shell’ took a less planned route. Crawler made the record with Grammy-nominated producer Daniel Barrett, and the two went into this song without deciding beforehand exactly what it should become.
“The recording process was really intense and really fun,” she says. “We went in without a fixed idea of what we wanted the song to become and took an experimental approach, letting the arrangement develop and be discovered as we went along.”
There are traces of heavier guitar music, close vocal harmonies and electronic textures in the finished track, but Crawler says they were not trying to force those ideas together.
“We pulled influence from a wide range of places as the song called for them, and somehow those different ideas came together into something that feels like it has an identity of its own.”
‘Born in a Shell’ introduces ‘Creature Comforts’, a record Crawler wrote while trying to make sense of the end of that relationship and what remained afterwards. She describes the album as being about rebuilding a sense of self after losing something that once seemed central.
“The songs deal with grief in a sincere way, but my humor does come through,” she says. “I’m smiling wryly at the absurdity of attachment.”
‘Born in a Shell’ is released September 25.
‘Creature Comforts’ follows on November 20 through Darlington Records.
Headline credit: Daniel Barrett
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