It's been nearly a month since I stumbled upon a lovely and lackadaisical jam from Boston bedroom-pop musician Emily Reo called "Happy Birthday" and I'm still stuck on it all these weeks later. Reo carefully layers her winsome and wistful voice atop a washed-out piano melody, a simple drum pattern that drags ever so slightly, and what sounds like a delicately plucked banjo, and the results are mesmerizing; Reo's multitracked vocals gives her singing a strange robotic quality that comes across as alien at certain points, but she delivers her lines with so much heart you can practically feel her pulse.…
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