Small Shake, the LA-via-Seattle project of artist Aarin Wright, today announces her debut EP Platonics, due out on Friday, August 22. Alongside the announcement, she shares a brand new single, “Still Too Soon”.
A dance between yearning and regret, the gently cooed melodies and softly plucked instruments of “Still Too Soon” sink into powerful crescendo, culminating in a screaming guitar solo which voices the frustration of an immutable situation.
“It’s a tightrope on the treacherous line between platonic and romantic,” shares Wright. “All I craved was normalcy, ease between myself and a friend—yet my own feelings required distance to overcome. It’s about heartache, yes, but more so a desire to return to the ‘before’. Alas, it was still too soon.”
Accompanying the track is a kite-filled music video directed by Mia Gualtieri. “The song talks about the desire to share special experiences with someone who is no longer around,” says Wright. “Flying a kite solo on a beautiful day, surrounded by other happy people…really captured that subtle loneliness.”
“Still Too Soon” follows the release of 2024 singles “Toxic” and “Montana Dream Wife”, which received press support from outlets like The FADER and Atwood Magazine as well as radio support from KEXP, The SoCal Sound and more.
Aarin Wright has explored every nook and cranny of the independent music world. The Washington state native has worked for two venues, served as a session booker for Seattle’s lauded KEXP, helped run record labels and independent music festivals, hosted radio shows, and written features as a music journalist.
She’s done almost every job the music industry has to offer… except leading a band. Until now. Until Small Shake. When the Covid-19 pandemic slowed her work life to a crawl, Wright—who grew up studying classical music and jazz on piano—finally picked up a guitar and taught herself to play. She named the burgeoning project for something joyful: her go-to order at the old-school diners and ice cream parlours she seeks out wherever she lands.
Small Shake’s debut EP, Platonics, was written about every possible shade of friendship, from the pure joy of unspoken connection to the complicated nuances of unrequited queer love. If the songs are platonic love letters, it’s only fitting that opener “Veruca” would feature faint, rhythmic typewriter sounds as percussion. It makes sense that the lush and airy “She Was Right” would explore the awkward places where regret and codependence overlap. It feels natural that the barroom piano and ethereal vocals of album centerpiece “Historical Event” weigh grand tragedy and personal disappointment on the same scale.
Largely written during the native Seattleite’s seven years in that city’s music scene, the EP’s rich blend of expansive and lo-fi sound was intimately shaped by the collaboration with LA-based producer Andrew Pelletier (Fur Trader), and mastered by Patrick Damphier (The Mynabirds, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Judy Blank).
Nothing about the EP betrays the fact that this is Wright’s first collection of songs. It has all the heart and the pent-up stories of a debut effort, but it’s clear that in all Wright’s years of being intimately involved with music, she was taking notes.
“I’ve been in awe of musicians my entire life,” she says. “Being able to play various roles behind the scenes, that awe and wonder has remained.”
It’s been a long time coming, but Small Shake is finally here. The awe and the wonder remain.
Platonics is out August 22. Pre-save the EP here.
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