Following the release of her first album, Emotions and Math, Glaspy toured nonstop for over two years. On tour, she says, “you’re in a vacuum all the time,” always at a venue or travelling to the next. After the tour, she was relieved to have some time to decompress. She spent the next six months in upstate New York, where she took time to ground herself and contemplate her next project.
When creating music, Glaspy likes to keep “someone or something in mind.” While writing Emotions and Math, Glaspy drew inspiration from musician Elliott Smith. “It’s a checkpoint for me,” she says.
“You always have these ideas of the people you look up to, what they would like.”
The checkpoint for her sophomore album, Devotion, was the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Glaspy describes him as a “compass” for this project, keeping in mind “his ethos and the things that he stood for” while writing and producing the album. The album is a stylistic departure as well, trading Emotions and Math’s folk rock for a new electronic sound, complete with vocoders and synths.
With Devotion, Glaspy finally found the time and space to grow. “I was just really excited to jump in a little deeper,” she says, “and start to explore the things I always wanted to explore.”
-Claire Lin Jenkins
