Release – Fashion Club, the alias of Los Angeles-based artist Pascal Stevenson, has announced her sophomore album, A Love You Cannot Shake, due out October 25th via Felte Records.
Lead single “Forget,” the art-pop track with country-inspired harmonies from Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas, is a conversation between Stevenson and her past self about the power of overcoming struggles.
“It’s trying to love a version of myself that I’ve spent so long trying to distance from,” Stevenson said. “But it’s also a recognition that if I drift too far away from the version of myself that I see as really flawed, I might forget the things about myself that I felt I needed to change.”
Though A Love You Cannot Shake is the first album that explicitly addresses her transness, it’s not so much a “coming out” record or a confessional, straightforward tell-all as it is a tastefully abstract distillation of her personal experiences and identities into stirring vignettes that anyone can relate to.
Whether it’s the search for self-worth in a society that only values humanity in its relation to capital (“Confusion”), the uncomfortably circular nature of self-growth (“Forget”) or the self-destructive urge to make up for “lost time” (“Ghost”), this LP is rooted in the universal truth that self-actualization is always worth pursuing. Tracks often begin from a place of discomfort and shame, but by the end, they tend to arrive at a more patient, hopeful frame of mind, as Stevenson cherishes the authenticity of a more amorphous emotionality.
Check out ‘Forget’ here: