As I write this review, I’m currently 38,789 miles high, on a red-eye flight somewhere above the state of Kansas. I’m one of the few cursed individuals unable to sleep on planes, in cars, or before 1:00 am. Today though, this inability doesn’t feel like a curse. Today, I’ve just finished my first listen and have already started my second listen-through of Gigi Perez’s highly anticipated Debut LP, ‘At the Beach, In Every Life.’ The debut full-length is an incredibly moving collection of songs and one of the most impressive debuts I’ve heard in a while.
Written as Perez experienced the aftermath of losing her beloved older sister Celene, The album is beautifully vulnerable, exploring themes of loss. Loss of love, loved ones, and even faith, while also powerfully cementing the bond the two siblings shared via Gigi’s stirring lyrics and with Celene’s voice memos divinely featured in the project. This motif further highlights the thoughtfulness put into every note of this album.
The songwriting on At the Beach, In Every Life, is resilient. Gigi Perez captures so many of the intimate feelings that revolve around loss and the process of healing and restarting while still having to deal with the very real challenges life continues to throw.
Of the album, Gigi says: “This is the album I needed to listen to when I was twenty years old following the passing of my older sister, Celene. It’s taken years to process, and seeing how it’s colored everything in my life, it feels like a flag down in the sand at a checkpoint rather than a destination. And there was water everywhere for miles, and a girl met me there every time. I have been loved through my grief.”
While this album was what Gigi needed to listen to in her time of grief, it’s safe to say that it will help others in similar situations. It helped me in mine as I sit at 2:00 am, now somewhere above Oklahoma, on this red-eye, traveling back from the funeral of a loved one, overwhelmed by my own grief. I tend to stay locked in a room and slip into the “pretty, black mess” that Perez sings about in ‘Sleeping’ during times of grief, but I leave this flight also feeling loved in my grief from the collection of moving music that Gigi Perez courageously put into her debut. A debut powerfully memorializing the love she felt, the love that brought her through, and a powerful statement to the growth that came from such a difficult period of life.
At The Beach, In Every Life begins with ‘Sailor Song,’ the powerful song that catapulted her into the Billboard Hot 100, and helped lead the Cuban-American Singer, Songwriter, and Producer to signing with the iconic Island Records.
Aside from the songwriting, perhaps one of the most impressive things about the project is that it was largely self-produced by Perez, who served as executive producer alongside her dear friends and collaborators, Noah Weinman and Aidan Hobbs.
Track after track features stellar lyricism and production to accompany Gigi’s soaring vocals.
‘Fable’ is a perfect song in my grade book. A powerful exploration of faith after death and the pain that follows questioning one’s faith after loss and the unknowns of the future, but with the remarkably hopeful final lyrics of ‘Stars blink like, like her eyes, I dream of eternal life, I dream of eternal life.’ Throughout the song, voice memos from Celene are subtly in the background, forever stamping the love and encouragement as Gigi goes from singing for a YouTube video to just before performing in a cafe.
Now, her music takes her far beyond a cafe stage as the “Normalcy’ singer has returned from the European leg of her sold-out global tour and returns to the United States with a busy sold-out tour schedule.
At The Beach, In Every Life stands out as an incredibly impressive debut from one of music’s rising stars. It’s a near-perfect album. At least it was for me after a quick trip to a funeral. While some of my feelings listening to this are guided by recent life events, this is a powerful body of work. Each layer of the tracks are strong. The project covers a wide range of feelings and experiences in a way that is powerful and timeless to resonate with people for a very long time to come.
Make sure you listen to the full album and look out for all that is to come with Gigi Perez.
