Photographer credit: Lauren Harris
Story: Ralph Greco, Jr.
Breakout NYC born-and-bred singer-songwriter Juliet Ivy’s new EP tiny but scary is out today via AWAL. The new music is already receiving critical praise from the likes of ELLE, Ones to Watch and Ladygunn. Watch the official video for the focus track “girl talk” HERE.
With tiny but scary, Juliet digs into her own experiences as a young woman in the 21st century. “Girlhood is really present in this project—all the ever-changing, complicated, intertwined emotions of being a young girl,” she explains. While the EP is rooted in Juliet’s now, her cleverly crafted lyrics situate that present in a fuller picture. Throughout, Juliet brings listeners into her head with honest, yet whimsical lyrics, which pair beautifully with her gently insistent melodies. “This EP is welcoming the people who found me from the first project [playpen] into my brain, my bedroom, and my childhood, and having them get to know me a little better,” she says. “playpen represented how I saw things outside of myself; this next project is more internal.”
To celebrate the new music, Juliet has confirmed her official EP release show at Brooklyn Made tomorrow, August 10. The Forest Hills-native will also be singing the national anthem at the August 14 Mets game as part of their “Queens Night.”
23-year-old Juliet Ivy grew up in a Colombian-Chinese household in New York City. She attended NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, where she learned the basics of songwriting and production, and she began making her own music as a freshman. The next year, she began embarking on sessions with producers around the city. During one of the sessions, she had a revelation: “Being the only writer and only lyricist in the room made me fall in love with lyrics. I had never been in a room where lyrics were the number one thing.” With her priorities shaken up, she plunged even deeper into songwriting—“not love songs; songs about existentialism, growing up, life and death,” she notes. She had a breakthrough while writing what became her first single “breakfast song,” which, she says, is about how most people are figuring out life as it goes along. The revelatory experience Juliet had with “breakfast song” led to her diving into her first EP, playpen.
Juliet spent the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 writing playpen, which came out in late 2023. The dreamy yet world-weary single “we’re all eating each other” hit No. 1 on Spotify’s Global Viral 50, and the five-song collection eventually amassed more than 65 million streams. Since then, Juliet has continued writing, combining existential and introspective subject matter with playful lyrics, a childlike sense of wonder and an intellectual view of the world, disguising abstract concepts through her own whimsical lens. Last month she wrapped her first-ever headline tour, including a performance at Head in the Clouds Festival in NYC, as well as a sold-out debut show in London and an appearance at The Great Escape in Brighton, UK.
EP artwork
TINY BUT SCARY TRACK LIST
1. 4 foot 2
2. is it my face?
3. kid
4. sweet dreams
5. girl talk
Ralph Greco, Jr. is the devilishly clever nom de plume of professional writer/musician Ralph Greco who lives in the wilds of suburban New Jersey. He is also a podcast co-host, but as everyone has a podcast these days, this fact is of very little consequence.
Ralph can be reached by writing ralphiedawriter@gmail.com
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