The leading voice of outlaw pop, Devora is sharing her most complete work to date, and Substream is hosting the world premier of her new video.
Keeping your faith in the world today takes everything you’ve got. From widespread sickness and poverty, to the rising temperatures and water levels, there is plenty of darkness all around us. Add to this the endless uphill battle any creative must face to be heard, and one cannot be blamed for struggling to find hope amid the calamity of being.
Still, this is your one life, and Arizona native Devora wants to ensure it isn’t wasted. The leader of the pop outlaw movement, Devora’s innate sense of rebellion translates to engaging, often hypnotic songs laced with an undeniable undercurrent of classic Western aesthetics. Her latest EP, God Is Dead, expands on previous efforts with unabashed lyricism that cuts to the bone, revealing all the dirty secrets one uncovers while fighting to make it in this crazy world.
Among the many highlights is “Bonesaw,” a rapturous offering written with purpose. As Devora explains:
“Bonesaw” is about a night in a motel room gone wrong, in a dark direction. It’s a voyeuristic impression of the lines between romance and impulse being heavily blurred. The song opens with seemingly illusive pretty snapshots of an all-American day dream, but progressively turns morose and ends with a bonesaw left in the motel room sink. I used to read a lot of medical textbooks as a hobby and one of the surgical tools from the civil war era, the bonesaw, always intrigued me. I have a couple of vintage ones at home.”
She continues” “A lot of my songs take place in motel rooms. There’s something really macabre and eerily “Temporary” about a motel room where, for essentially 24 hours, you can be whoever you want to be in that room sealed and removed from the outside world. It’s like your own revolving set. What happens in that room stays in that room. A lot of serial killers have set up shop in motel rooms and I know I’ve definitely walked into some gnarly motel rooms where I’ve gotten hit with this feeling, like getting punched in the gut, where I’ve started to put the pieces together that something really messed up must have happened in this room… “Bonesaw” is all of the above.”
Substream is thrilled to share the world premiere of the Felicity Jayn Heath directed video for “Bonesaw.” Enjoy:
Songs like “Bonesaw,” and really, the material on God Is Dead overall, resonates with people because it’s honest. There are enough songs about people with dreams, but far less about the reality of achieving them. Artists often use words like sacrifice with no thought to what such terms mean, but Devora knows the meaning in her soul. When you hear her sing you get a sense for all that has happened to make hearing that voice possible. The highs and low, the good times and bad, it’s all there on tape for the world to hear.
But the takeaway is never nihilistic. While Devora may shine a light on the darkness, she rarely gives in to the allure of its embrace. Her work is meant to remind us that everything comes with a price, and that we would all be wise to stop and consider the cost of chasing our dreams.
