Welsh artist Thallo returns with the startlingly beautiful single ‘Carry Me,’ a mesmerising jazz-infused slice of ethereal alt-pop inspired by Thallo’s personal experience of immobility.

‘Carry Me’ is the first taster from Thallo’s forthcoming English/Welsh language Crescent EP which follows on October 28. The EP is themed around Thallo’s own story of chronic pain, which at the time of writing ‘Carry Me’ left her often unable to stand or walk after suffering unexplainable and debilitating knee pain. As she expands “I wrote ‘Carry On’ in lockdown which was a strange time of losing my work, social life, and then what felt like losing my body to constant pain. I felt completely hopeless and saw a familiar wave of depression approaching. ‘Carry Me’ is about this exact moment of realisation and panic.”

Musically, ‘Carry Me’ was initially inspired by Thallo wanting to write “a dark ukulele song,” and ended up being improvised due to the pain Thallo was experiencing, making it, as Thallo says, “the fastest song I ever wrote”. The chords, lyrics and vocal melody were done in one take, and the arrangement created after by layering clarinets and synths before sharing the other parts of the instruments in the studio. The effect is a glorious, rich rush of multi-instrumentation and Thallo’s sublime vocal whirling in a jazz-infused dream before it’s emotive crescendo.