Ashlynn Malia shares “emergency” alongside a music video, out now on Jullian Records/The Orchard. Flaunt premiered the video, praising how the “19-year-old pop sensation channels her inner Cher with a glamorous new music video.” American Songwriter featured Malia, detailing the background of the song and noting how “on the more R & B-fused “emergency,” Malia exits the other side of aloneness, finding contentment with oneself.”
Ashlynn Malia felt emotionally starved by her environment and personal fears when she started writing rather be alone. The EP depicts Malia letting relationships last past their initial burst of passion and energy, acting on impulse to be closer to someone and welcoming their need for intimacy, all while accepting some relationships’ inevitable abandonment and failure.
If making those connections means enduring all the overthinking, insecurity, growing pains, abandonment, rejection, questioning of my own self-worth and blurring of my mental vision – then I’d rather be alone, where I’m safe from that type of pain. – Ashlynn Malia
rather be alone shows a girl torn apart, winding her way through her circular deliberations, and ultimately growing to live with the forlorn conclusion that she can live with the empty spaces that relationships would fill. Life is much less complicated in solitude.
rather be alone was created by Ashlynn Malia over the span of two years with producers Andrew Weitz and Koby Berman.
On the creation process of rather be alone, Malia says: We played around, experimented a lot, and didn’t take ourselves too seriously during the process. A ton of the sounds you hear in this EP are original. The first snare in “desperate” is a heavily processed recording of me biting a carrot. The pulse in “alone” is the ticking of a giant clock that we found in Koby’s studio. I think we all genuinely enjoyed working together and finding our collective sound. Looking back at the start of this project, we’ve all evolved so much since. We poured our time, energy, hearts, and souls into this body of work and it’s extremely personal and special.