Essy’s “So Far” Is Constellated with Starry Pining

The night feels vast in Essy’s hands. On her latest single, “So Far”, the Nashville-based singer (born Rachel Braig) captures the glimmering emptiness and infinite abandon of a moonlit city drive in miniature. Words hurtle themselves down in echoes as if in a freeway tunnel, synths light up in a brief flash of an arpeggiated skyline, and the bass slicks itself across the bottom of the mix like liqueur spilled on wood. “So far, I’m so good at missing you,” she yearns to the night sky as if she were seeing her ex-lover’s face in passing freeway street lights. It’s not an unfamiliar scene, but Braig turns the script into her own vision of self-loathing and regret: “I wish I could change my heart / Turn it off and press restart.”

Of the single’s conception, Essy explained, “This song was written during a time of healing. There’s not much you can do when a heartache hits, so I used to take long drives through Nashville listening to Chris Martin and Robyn to kill time. And this song truly is an amalgamation of those two influences, something I wrote to cry and dance to.”

Hear this song on the PM Picks Spotify playlist.