Two years after releasing her debut single 'Home' (which featured Pez), Melbourne singer-songwriter Anya Alchemy returns with her second song 'For You' – a track born from a collage of heartbreak.
'For You' is an unbridled exploration of raw, emotive storytelling (accompanied by an acoustic guitar, with stark, haunting strings arriving mid-song) focused on one-sided love stories."'For You' was first inspired by a childhood crush; he had gotten a girlfriend out of nowhere and I cried in the shower," Anya says.
"Since then it has been inspired by many different events, one in particular was when I was stalking a guy on social media.
"I was just looking through his Instagram comments and saw that the only people commenting were women, much prettier and cooler than me.
"Another event was a fling that ended after a couple weeks – the worst thing was that nothing was even said to break it off; we just stopped talking. He had sex with the local dealer and then moved interstate."
Ahead of the song's release tomorrow, scenestr is ecstatic to premiere the 'For You' music video today. Enjoy.
Add to the equation that Anya is only 17, and the maturity of her songwriting is simply impressive. "I guess the song is really about feeling like you would do anything for somebody that you know wouldn't return it," she says of 'For You'.
"Although you're aware that their intentions are different from yours, you allow them to treat you in a way that you know is wrong. You would really die for them and they're just along for the ride."
An artist destined for a larger stage, 'For You' was a song Anya took her time to get right. "The recording of the song took about a year.
"Originally we recorded in our home studio in the Dandenong Ranges, but we live on a main road and would have to keep stopping takes because of trucks going by.
"We then moved to Jay's (Billy Hudson) studio but still had takes with babies crying and dogs barking in the background.
"We managed to piece a few things together with the help of a couple 9-hour days in between my year 10 school holidays.
"The song just came out when I was jamming with my step Dad (Bernard Roberts) on the piano and within moments it was fully written.
"I used to hate it and felt like it was too 'granola', but once we switched it from piano to guitar I felt like it was something I could really connect with rather than just tolerate."
