Exclusive: reedcee’s Didn’t That Hurt? is a personal, lush, and sprawling EP deserving of a listen
There’s just something about Didn’t That Hurt? that deserves reedcee a prominent place on the independent artist map. In fact, that “something” is a lot of things. Check it out on all platforms next Thursday.
Who is reedcee?
I met reedcee on TikTok. Their viral video caused me to poke around their profile, eventually downloading another video and making a brute-force Stitch of it as one of my first videos on the platform. After a while, reedcee commented and followed me back. Surprisingly accessible for an artist, a few exchanges of mutual followings on different platforms brought me to listening to their upcoming EP, Didn’t That Hurt?, before it’s upcoming release on September 30 of this year (30 September for y’all across the pond).
reedcee’s Music
Speaking of the UK, it’s where reedcee is currently based. Maryland born and rural-south raised, Zachary Messersmith (the person behind the reedcee pseudonym) has been releasing a steady trickle of music as an independent artist since mid-2019. In that time, they've explore different genres from an informed, knowledgable standpoint: reedcee bounces from an infectious, autotuney yet laid-back bedroom synth-pop to a raw, reverbatious piano ballad to sample-driven, semi-choral ambient-alt, just on their first EP release. In the past year and a half, a Soundcloud-exclusive EP, followed by two Soundcloud-exclusive singles, preceded three singles and an EP, both released on all platforms. The unreleased song on their Twitter (a bop, by the way) begs to be played on a quiet, coming-of-age night drive, cruising a lonely highway, street lamps periodically lighting the dashboard. It’s not just the amount of evocative output that’s impressive, but the quality of it, too.
In Didn’t That Hurt?, there’s beautiful vocal harmonies and layering that invites the ear. There’s organic, expressive instrumental lines that break away from that stock-instrument-bedroom-pop stereotype. There’s a stylistic confidence in the arrangement and vocal effects. It’s clear that reedcee knows what they’re doing, rather than pretending to. What they accomplish is not a kitchy wall of sound from the 60s or tasteless genre whiplash (though the idea briefly crosses your mind when you see reedcee’s recent TikTok), but instead something wholly unique that stands out. Having studied theatre, it’s pleasantly surprising that reedcee has the musical wherewithal to plan and execute their music with an artful precision. For the EP, reedcee adopts a lush indie that’s evocative of sprawling landscapes, quiet lonely hours, and dimming sunsets in apartment windows. There is a pleasant stylistic cohesiveness in an overarching way, but not in a way that the songs aren’t unique on their own. The umbrella that reedcee places over the tracks on the project is wide enough to accommodate for a variety of sub-genre approaches. We see the aforementioned ambient and piano ballad tastefully converge on “Shelter”; “Intro” and “Too High For This” pull from country and soft rock while still standing their ground about being unique. Truly, the EP is too varied to be a square, genre work without energy, yet much too satisfyingly cohesive to be an eclectic garble. It’s intriguing how reedcee was able to pull this balance off, making it difficult to describe the expertise of Didn’t That Hurt?. As a result, I won’t try to force a singular label on the release, other than a lush indie that grows outside the box. If that's confusing, just know that the balance works (and well).
reedcee’s Lyrics
There’s something intriguing about reedcee’s lyrics, too. In all of their material, the lyrics make you feel as if reedcee were in the room with you, talking at length about personal experiences. The topics discussed in the past have an unafraid range to them, touching on medications, hookup culture, college troubles, and the queer experience in different capacities (I’ll touch on this last one shortly). It’s not quarantined to their music, either: reedcee’s social media has casual, personal, and humorous insights on mental health, Minecraft, and medication use, among a wide range of other things.
I like to call that personal, honest, sometimes funny, and modernly relatable approach to lyrics the “Ari Lennox quirk.” When I first heard “Whipped Cream” off of Shea Butter Baby, I was happily taken aback by how truthful the lyrics were. I realized that I’d never seen something so unique in that it touched on such topics as the anxiety of wanting to child-bear before menopause, an online shopping addiction, and sex toy use contained in a larger story of unrequited love. “Cream” took these outwardly mundande experiences and transformed them into elevated verse that wormed into your ears and never left. In doing so, you’re led to the realization that those seemingly mundane things discussed aren’t actually mundane at all: more taboo or less common lyrical content is still an integral part of our lives, one that deserves lyrical attention. And that exact spot is where the relatability of reedcee’s music and lyrics hit you: right in this unscratched itch of unseen, yet very real discussion eating away on your heart. E.g., “get[ting] so depressed [in] the winter months”; that’s certainly something all too relatable this past year.
But there’s one topic that, throughout the EP (at least lyrically), supersedes one-off mentions of relatability. reedcee’s honesty about what it’s like to be queer and lonely just makes your heart ache to the words. That physical longing for a “Lukewarm Body” right next to you, I’ve certainly felt it before. The mental yearning of saying “I Could Be Your Baby”? All-too relatable. And the dynamics of unrequited queer love displayed in “Haha (I’m Too Cool)”? That too. There’s this raw, emotionally charged feeling that’s somehow boiled into words throughout Didn’t That Hurt?. That’s a feat so difficult to do in practice, but reedcee does it without an exhaustive fanfare, without gaudy attention drawing. They just do it effortlessly and truthfully, letting the words speak for themselves. To paraphrase reedcee himself, what’s special about this EP is that lyrical aspect of “tender longing”.
Track-by-Track Impressions
Since this EP isn’t LP-length, I thought it would be good to share some condensed thoughts on each track, one by one:
“Intro”
There’s something magical about the beginning of “Intro,” the homogenization of the distant vocal sample, the muted trumpet, the older upright piano, and the double-tracked, close-enough-to-touch vocals that start off this album. Before uttering a word, the song already feels so emotional, so personal and interpersonal with the sampled voices of friendly conversation, that you start to feel the longing for the “summer [that] left as soon as it came” right off the bat. The lyrical allusion to “September Song” is fitting for the release date. This intro feels like it’s coming from all different directions, spatialized insanely well, but it gently pushes you to the center instead of pulling you away. The slide guitar that appears later feels so compatible; those harmonized ah’s at the end are a beautiful addition. I’ve got to say, for a track that serves as an introduction, "Intro" could shine in isolation.
“Too High For This”
How can you write a song that feels so indie about such an urban experience? reedcee does it perfectly here. The beginning guitar motif, initially reminiscent of “Walk on the Wild Side,” gives way to a swung drum pattern that blossoms into a track on casual drug use in the context of life as a whole. Despite that initial musical association, the attention to detail in the slow-building transitions is one of the facets that comes to the forefront after multiple listens. If this EP had a single, this would be my pick.
“Haha (I’m Too Cool)”
Again, we start with a swung drum pattern, but we quickly go into a track that flaunts an indie-pop feel. It’s faster than the track that precedes, yet counterintuitively more laid back. Vocal harmonies and the varieties of synth that appear fill up the space of the song. The ad-libs and backing vocals are just plain fun when you pick them out, as well as the flangy, synthy sounds that appear in the chorus.
“Lukewarm Body”
Again, that slide guitar appears! There’s also vocals in rounds at the beginning?! These first few moments make a good impression. “Lukewarm Body” is a little more chill than the last track, though it also has an indie feel: this time, it’s more an indie rock track than anything. There’s a prominent bass that staples the floating vocals and the rhythmic keys/guitar together. Lyrically, the titular “lukewarm body” was what initially drew me into this track, but I stayed for the extended outro that clocks in at over one minute. “Body” is a solid inclusion in the tracklist.
“Shelter”
The “Shelter” interlude is a nice surprise, being the only song on the EP that reedcee doesn’t sing on. A voice memo of a rubato piano performance, the resonance of the upright is a warm, welcome sound. A clear demonstration of their piano chops, this interlude has the added benefit of bringing you into such a personal space. You can even hear some of the environment it was recorded in. reedcee breathes, releases the pedal, and picks up their phone at the end; a car whizzes by around the two-minute mark. The environmental noise is the sort of intimacy that’s only accessible on a more indie release like this.
“I Could Be Your Baby”
From the beginning, you can tell this track is something unique: the electric piano that’s quickly swapped for an upright, the strumming guitar, the heavy drumset, it all points to, again, indie rock. But the vocal presentation and delivery on the track gives “I Could Be Your Baby” a certain yearning that sidesteps that genre label somewhat, in a solid way. Another track with a great outro, it works well as a strong conclusion to a strong project.
Final Thoughts
There’s so much in this EP that needs to be celebrated. For an artist with a small following, the quality of Didn't That Hurt? by reedcee is beyond impressive. This EP is an outstanding listen for the fall. Although it’s also highly re-listenable (I listened to each track at least a dozen times before publishing this piece), sometimes it feels that the stylistic inclusion of filtered and phased vocals sacrifices intelligibility (though that could also be due to my sub-par listening setup). That being said, it’s easily forgiven when surrounded by the cohesive, mature, and lush sound of the EP as a whole. What strikes me about the project overall, from someone who previously only knew reedcee from their humorous internet presence, is how well-produced and personal this project is. Other than my aforementioned gripe about vocals (that, again, may not be a gripe at all), my other complaint is that I wanted it so desperately to be a full-length album. I’d love to see more of reedcee’s work in the future, and I can’t wait to hear that unreleased track on their Twitter/whatever they have coming up next.
Disclosures: I reached out to reedcee with advance notice of this piece’s publication, though I was careful to conserve the integrity of this piece by being limited and focused in discussion. Topics we discussed in relation to this coverage were limited to publication date, pronouns, pseudonymity, press pictures, and advance listening of the EP/some initial impressions after first listen. The opinions in this piece are entirely my own.