Originating from Ireland and living in the London Metropolis, soul singer Carrie Baxter has become one of the most electrifying voices in the Irish music scene. Due to her exceptional vocal tones and her raw and honest lyrics, Carrie is organically building a name for herself and steadily carving her place in the music industry. Though recognised as a soul singer, sources such as Earmilk have defined Baxter’s music as “modern R&B tracks without fancy bells and whistles.” Other outlets such as Hot Press have described the Irish musician’s sound and style as “marrying neo-soul and hip-hop flavoured jazz in an approach that mirrors the best of Amy Winehouse and Erykah Badu.”
Baxter has recently released an EP titled What Now. As the singer has revealed, What Now is a collaborative piece of work which she produced with her close friend GRAMM. The EP blends the memorable themes of self-reflection, love, and heartbreak, as seen in her previous EP Placebo, with more playful sounds. In What Now, Baxter not only draws from her personal experiences, (as she did in Placebo), but also tries to tell the stories of people around her.
The first single ‘What Now’ introduces the EP with a funky beat. The uplifting and hook-laden intro song prepares listeners to go for a ride through the various themes that were previously mentioned. ‘Something in the Water’ is so far the most widely streamed song from the EP, with over 36,000 plays. The delicate vocals are accompanied by an upbeat instrumental that both work together to deliver the emotions of dancing and feeling good. After its release in August, ‘Something in the Water’ rapidly grasped the attention of tastemakers in the UK and Ireland, with outlets such as Notion Magazine adding the track to their ‘Undiscovered’ playlist and expressing that “Carrie Baxter serves us real Tom Misch vibes on this jazz-inflected number.”
The third track ‘You Know I Want Ya’ appears to be a demo of the song ‘Rose’. In this short sample, we get to hear some BTS of the artist messing up before we are hit with the actual song. ‘Rose’ is a smooth, seductive track that sees Carrie telling the story of friends-turned-lovers-turned-friends-again. Speaking on what she wanted to transmit through the track, Baxter said “I wanted this song to feel like a late-night diary entry. I wanted it to be very intimate and reminiscent of nostalgic moments between two people. It was important for me to make the song chilled but have a very sexy edge too, evoking a sense of forbidden lovers.”
Next comes Nostalgia, one of the softest songs in the EP. The track is sweet, slow, and dreamy. As the title reveals, ‘Nostalgia’ transmits feelings of longing, and connects with the most vulnerable part of ourselves. The last song before the outro is ‘You’, which saw the artist taking the tempo down to a night in Ronnie Scott’s jazz club over a Bourbon and exposed the distinct, exceptional charm in her raspy vocals.
Baxter is currently doing an EP tour in some parts of the UK, with her next performance taking place in Glasgow. The Irish singer is clearly making listeners feel some type of way, and it might not be long till we see her reaching the peak of her music career.
Carrie Baxter releases her highly anticipated EP ‘What Now’ this October 22nd, listen here.
