May Rio

It is May Rio’s personality and deftness that ultimately shine and make her solo debut the unexpected journey that it is. It is intelligent like a riddle and catchy like an over-saturated cartoon. On Easy Bammer, May turns months of isolation into a curious & hyperreal reflection on memory of a time in New York City before stay-at-home-orders and lukewarm take-out—reflections on a time when staying at home & thinking felt like an unreasonable request of the cosmos. May Rio’s Easy Bammer gives its listener a chance to experience the warmth & quiet laughter of reflection; it does so in a time otherwise reserved for most as an endless cycle of waiting for new headlines.

May says, “Same as a lot of people, I felt my world get a lot smaller when the pandemic hit. I’d spent hardly any time at home before, and now this cozy place of refuge—- my bedroom — had been transformed into a cozy cell. I think in the album, I’m acting out a lot that I wouldn’t be able to do in real life. I know, for instance, I probably shouldn’t (or can’t) act on this impulse, or say this to so-and-so… but I can wrap it up in these lyrics and box it in with this melody....These songs became a pillow for me to scream, or sob, into. And sometimes I’m laughing.”