Written across Melbourne and Los Angeles, two cities that couldn’t be more different, the record captures the messy, disorienting work of starting over.
Frontwoman Marie DeVita began writing it three years ago at her lowest point: label gone, closest friendships fractured, future unclear. She started travelling to Melbourne to write with Gab Strum (Haim, Mallrat, Greta Ray), and the material was too good to shelve.
Eventually, DeVita relocated to LA. The city is brutal and addictive in equal measure, and it worked. New communities, new collaborators and a healthy folder of demos. She reunited with longtime production partner Miro Mackie (St.Vincent, Wallows, Hatchie), the same duo behind the band’s 2016 Wild and Weak EP, and the two locked themselves in a North Hollywood studio for two months straight, a revolving door of musicians and producers keeping the whole thing from completely going off the rails.
The title ‘Angel’s Mess’ has two lives. The first: the record really was a mess, chaotic, emotional, built from scraps across years and continents, threaded together in a pressure-cooker studio run. The second: Angel’s Mess is a dish at Millie’s, a diner in Silver Lake. It’s a weird-looking plate of food that somehow tastes incredible. For DeVita, it’s a perfect fit, every element of this record seems like it shouldn’t work together. It all does.