Leave it to Danielle Davis, the Ann Arbor-based singer-songwriter who performs soulful intergalactic lo-fi as Dani Darling, to release new music on 11/11/2020, which one numerology website claims as being “the most powerful manifesting day of the century.”
Darling, who was one of Metro Times' artists to watch this year, makes her return with the MageEP, her first collection of tunes since 2019's Nocturne, in which Darling paired her wide-ranging influences like Ella Fitzgerald and Thom Yorke for an R&B and chillwave sonic cocktail.
With Mage, a five-song, 10-minute collection inspired by pandemic-related solitude and the ever-changing of life plans, Darling channels artists like Solange, Feist, and H.E.R., and, for the title track's visuals, she casually spoofs Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof while celebrating playfulness and Black femininity.
The charmingly unpolished video by Kyla McGrath finds Darling relatably restless at home until she and her gaggle of friends hit the streets at night on roller skates, longboards, and scooters, a nod to Death Proof's high-octane Chargers and Challengers,resulting in a chill summer night we will soon be longing for as months of cold quarantine approaches.
Watch the visuals for “Mage” below. Mage EP is streaming on iTunes and Spotify.
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