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Mar 10, 2023 By Mark Moody Photography by Kelli McGuire

Today, Under the Radar is premiering the single “Crushed Out” by New Jersey’s PYNKIE (aka Lindsey Radice). The single is the first track to debut from PYNKIE’s upcoming third album, Songies, due to be released on August 18. Songies is the follow-up album to 2020’s #37 (released on House Arrest), which was preceded by PYNKIE’s 2018 debut album, neoteny.

Self-described “songmaker + nurse,” Radice has a penchant for pop hooks, layered vocals, and catchy choruses. “Crushed Out” is no exception and further releases from Songies will bear this out as well. Radice’s previous tracks have caught the attention of stalwart indie tastemakers and some of her earlier demos have also caught fire on streaming platforms. “Dew - Lo-Fi Version” and “starry eyed - demo” have logged more than two million Spotify streams.

Radice originally started writing songs in her dorm room back in college. “When I started making music, it was definitely a joke at first. But then I started taking myself more seriously. I felt like I could do a little more than just making songs about cup noodles,” Radice jokes. She first gained popularity on SoundCloud, ultimately leading to her signing by Fat Possum imprint, House Arrest. “I would release demos on SoundCloud and people just started to repost them or whatever. And it just became this little thing. It’s a bit of an underground scene where people like things that sound like shit. But for my official releases, and this type of music, I feel like it has to be perfect, so I spend a lot of time on that,” she says.

Of “Crushed Out,” Radice shares, “When I started writing the song, I was thinking back to when I was a tomboy as a younger girl. I had a crush on my friend’s older brother, so in the song I say, ‘You had big blue eyes, and I had little tiny ones.’ But I was also thinking about alternate realities and I’m just really fascinated by dreams. So I mixed having a crush on someone and having that be part of a dream. And it just becomes like this secret relationship in an alternate reality.” Radice also says the title of the song is a homage to one of her favorite albums of all times, that dog.’s Totally Crushed Out.

The Hayden Fray directed video, which was partly filmed on the top of Radice’s apartment building, recreates the dream sequence of the song. “The video is just about a glitch in the matrix. My boyfriend, John, is in the video and we go through this wormhole to another timeline that draws us together in a weird way. But mainly making the video was a way to have a house party and have all my friends there,” Radice says.

Songies will release on August 18, 2023, and includes a dozen tracks, including a duet with April June on “Scared.” The album’s title may sound dismissive of the work that Radice put into the tracks, but it speaks more to her independent spirit. “I’ve always called my songs songies after I made them because I thought it was funny. But to me it just means a song that’s short, sweet, to the point. With a classic verse, chorus, verse structure, but also weird. I couldn’t find that anyone else had ever used the title. It’s never been done and that’s unacceptable. It has to be done!” Radice says.

Songies track list:

1. Time_60bpm

2. Crushed Out

3. Lately

4. Scared

5. Unsee

6. Both Sides

7. Veil

8. Spiral

9. Mutual

10. PLZ

11. Be Good

12. *Wind chimes*