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Mar 20, 2019 By Christopher Roberts Io Echo

Ioanna Gika was formerly the frontwoman for Los Angeles dark electro shoegaze duo Io Echo, but she is releasing her debut solo album, Thalassa, on April 5 via Sargent House. Now she has shared another song from it, “Swan.” Listen below, followed by her upcoming tour dates supporting Garbage.

Gika had this to say about the song in a press release: “‘Swan’ is about the sinking feeling when you sense a relationship is coming to an end, but you are powerless to stop it. You exist in this nebulous state, and can sense the change, but are met with silence. I had this feeling right before my long-term relationship ended, I had this feeling when my dad was sick but doctors weren’t getting back to me with answers. Hearing the truth is harsh, but silence, when you’re looking for answers, is a suffocating purgatory.”

Thalassa includes “Roseate,” its opening track that was shared as a single last October and was one of our Songs of the Week. When the album was announced Gika shared a self-directed video for a new song from it, “Out of Focus” (which also made our Songs of the Week list).

A previous press release said that Thalassa was “written in Greece during a period of familial grief and romantic dissolution” and that the album “documents an unanchored soul facing nature at its most unforgiving.”

Gika added: “A series of deaths drew me home to Greece. The city of my childhood memories was in disrepair. I drove past painted swastikas towards burial sites. I said goodbyes and grieved for those I didn’t get to say goodbye to. Thalassa is about going through change that is unwanted yet unstoppable. It is a document of the dread, the adrenaline, and the surrender in the moments when you realize the only way to survive is to brace yourself and go through.”

Read our recent Artist Survey interview with Gika.

Ioanna Gika Tour Dates Supporting Garbage:

May 3 Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
May 7 Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
May 8 Charlotte, NC @ The Filmore
May 16 Los Angeles, CA @ The Shrine

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