After her musical success back in 2021 with her single “Celene” and recently getting the chance to tour with d4vd’s latest The Root of it All Tour and Noah Cyrus’ The Hardest Part Tour last fall, Florida-raised and New York-based artist Gigi Perez finally released her debut EP titled How to Catch a Falling Knife on April 29th. To describe the feel of the demo, Perez says the newly released EP is “not a guide, but a question.” Now, Gigi is an immensely talented and complex writer (in the best ways possible), so it’s not surprising to see that How to Catch a Falling Knife perfectly captures the heaviness of grief and the feeling of lost love that will hit you in your feelings and heal you at the same time. To describe her EP, Gigi states: “How do you? Here you will find eight songs that resemble eight chapters of my life. Following the loss of my oldest sister and the ending of my first love, I grasp to understand yearning, anguish, ruminating, sleeplessness, malaise, yearning, rinse, repeat. Where did I go Wrong? And How Can I Never Make That Mistake Again?”
When asked about how the creative process of her debut EP came to be, Gigi said: “I wasn’t expecting to turn songs that I was writing in my bedroom into a project. But, at the time, I was going to music school in Boston and I had come back home when Covid hit. My sister passed away. So, during this time, I was really, really lost. I wasn’t happy in school and I was going through this crazy grieving process… The beginning of it was bare in the sense that I was just writing this to get it out because I was going insane. So when I uploaded some music online and I kind of took off, it changed the trajectory and intention of what these songs were.”
Perez understands how important music is and how it can be an outlet for some, especially when times get rough. “Music is the only thing that really has ever gotten me through,” Perez says. “I know that’s what everybody says, but it’s true—it’s that thing we can hold on to.” How to Catch a Falling Knife really is an EP for those that have fallen on hard times and need to experience their emotions through the power of music. The melodies throughout the demo tend to be mournful, but yet so powerful. The lyrics are deep, and you can hear and sense what Gigi is trying to convey through her art. It’s painful, but sometimes that’s mandatory in order to understand what it is exactly that you need to feel in order to better yourself in situations that make you feel like you’re losing your mind. Gigi knows what that feels like.
Perez explains the vision and inspiration behind her latest music video by saying: “I think that one thing that grief has made me, and anybody who has experienced sudden, complicated, or traumatic grief, is that you experience a sense of delusion. I wanted to capture that kind of delusion of experiencing something that is not real. When I experienced my first really intense loss with my sister, it just became very apparent to me how crazy your brain can get and the things that you can think of. And it was something that I think I was ashamed of with the concept of straight up wanting to dig someone from the ground because that’s literally what it is. And I know it doesn't make sense, and it doesn't have to, but I know there are so many people that experience really weird delusional fantasies when you’re grieving. And instead of having the shame over something that used to terrorize me, I kind of just turned it into a joke.”
The hope for Gigi is that this EP will give anyone who can relate something to hold onto and let them know that they’re not alone. "It's scary to think that I’m going to have that out there," Gigi confesses, "but I realized that when I’m listening to the artists that have gotten me through the craziest times, I’m not necessarily thinking about them—instead, it’s like a song is holding me while I’m going through it.” This EP is vulnerable and a solid foundation for anyone that feels they are stuck in their process, which reveals why Gigi’s writing knack is so profoundly necessary for society.
If you want to take a listen to How to Catch a Falling Knife click here! Or if you want to keep up with Gigi her socials are here and here!
