In 2013, the internet was still a collage—Tumblr’s grainy GIFs, early Instagram’s Nashville filter, and the last gasp of the indie sleaze era. Demellza’s visual world taps directly into that vein. Her music videos (self-directed, shot on a friend’s Canon 60D) feature thrift-store lace, flickering CRT televisions in empty fields, and the kind of melancholic, sun-bleached loneliness that defined the early work of Lana Del Rey —minus the calculated glamour.
Her debut EP, Saltburn , dropped in April on the tiny independent label Glass Wax. No PR blitz. No radio plug. Just seven tracks of lo-fi electronics, warped cello samples, and that voice. The lead single, “Heavy Hand,” started as a bedroom recording on a broken Tascam 414. By June, it had been streamed over 400,000 times—a viral drip, not a flood. 2013 candice demellza
As we part ways on a drizzly Kingsland Road, she pulls out a battered notebook. On the cover, scrawled in silver Sharpie: Candice Demellza – LP1 (do not steal). She catches me looking and winks. In 2013, the internet was still a collage—Tumblr’s
“People keep calling it ‘bedroom pop,’” she says, scrunching her nose. “But my bedroom had mold and a roommate who vacuumed at 2 a.m. It’s not a vibe. It’s a survival sound.” Her debut EP, Saltburn , dropped in April
By Lydia Cross | September 2013