Bria Salmena has released a new stand-alone single “Bending Over Backwards,” the original song is the first from the Canadian artist released under her full name. It also follows Salmena and her longtime collaborator and producer Duncan Hay Jennings’s departure from Orville Peck’s band. “Bending Over Backwards,” is available via Sub Pop/Royal Mountain Records, and accompanied with a video Directed by Talvi Faustmann.

“It’s about some crazy life experiences that I’ve had in the past four years and the work that it takes to go into chaos and come out of it,” she says. Describing the song as “a manic conversation with myself,” Salmena developed different vocal styles for the different parts, pushing herself to sing in an uncomfortable falsetto for the verses, demonstrating her heartfelt desire to embrace change and discomfort in pursuit of artistic authenticity.

“Bending Over Backwards” was co-produced by Duncan Hay Jennings and Meg Remy (U.S. Girls), mixed by Graham Walsh & Steve Chahley, and mastered by Heba Kadry. Additional instrumentation from Evan Cartwright (Cola) on drums, Lucas Savatti (FRIGS) on bass guitar and piano, with backing vocals from Jaime McCuaig and saxophone from Andy Manktelow.

Bria Salmena was initially becoming known as the frontwoman for Canadian experimental post-punk group FRIGS, which she co-founded with Duncan Hay Jennings, then joined up with the enigmatic sensation Orville Peck, with whom she toured the world for the past half-decade as a member of his live band. Between tours, Salmena and Jennings (also a Peck collaborator) recorded two well-received covers EPs, giving classic and modern Americana songs a gothy dream pop spin, pushing the boundaries of the country genre; the cheekily named Cuntry Covers Vol. 1 & 2 were previously released on Sub Pop under the mononym Bria.

In her solo music, Salmena pairs various eras of brooding rock music—from austere goth and cottony shoegaze to hypnotic krautrock and gleaming coldwave—with an introspective singer-songwriter approach, her rich, distinctive vocals a perfect match for evocatively personal lyrics. Similar in vibe to the idiosyncratic chamber pop of Aldous Harding or Kate Bush, the raw art rock PJ Harvey, and the long-form ambient of Grouper, Salmena approaches genre like a puzzle, her music a strangely beautiful amalgamation that feels immediate, intimate, and original.

Order “Bending Over Backwards” HERE