11:11
When Biig Piig, aka Irish pop dynamo Jess Smyth, listens back to her debut album, she hears a record that reflects how much music is a friend to her. These songs are where Smyth has channeled her emotions over the past few years, where she’s tried to make sense of the turmoil. “Within the chaos, the only thing that really keeps me together is music and being able to make it, and expressing through lyrics and melodies and storytelling—just to be able to talk to something and get my feelings out,” she tells Apple Music. “When I listened back to it, I was like, ‘Fucking hell!’ There was so many moments that I really needed a friend and music was that for me.” *11:11*, the follow-up to her excellent 2023 mixtape *Bubblegum*, marks the arrival of a striking new voice in modern music. The music deftly shapeshifts from one song to the next, an exhilarating ride through strobing electronic pop, minimalist, melodic techno, downbeat balladry, atmospheric trip-hop, and synth-disco anthems. One thing, says Smyth, unites them. “There’s a lot of sad bangers on this fucking record!” she hoots. “If you can’t celebrate it, what are you going to do, if you can’t get a little dance on whilst you’re crying?” Dab down your tears and head towards the dance floor: Biig Piig is here to take you through *11:11*, track by track. **“4AM”** “When I started ‘4AM,’ I knew I wanted it to be the first track because the way it starts is, ‘You could’ve hit me with the bad news first.’ And I was like, ‘I want that to be the opening line because I know that where we’re going with every other track, and the way we’re weaving through this relationship and diving into those things.’ I’m like, ‘Fucking hell, I wish I knew that it was going to hurt, diving in.’ It sparked something in me where I was like, ‘Oh fuck, I really want to delve deeper with it.’” **“Ponytail”** “This was made with Lloyd MacDonald \[aka producer/artist Mac Wetha\], who I really like because he’s so integral to everything for as an artist. I wouldn’t have released music without him so I really wanted to make sure that he was on this record. Lloyd is the OG, the first producer that I just ever felt comfortable enough to show music to and he was so encouraging with bringing things out. ‘Ponytail’ is a sad banger. It’s basically about a toxic relationship and trying to navigate how hard it is when you’re so attached to something that’s not good for you but you’re like, ‘Fuck, I just can’t really picture my life without it because it’s become such a pattern now that I need you, even if it’s killing me.’” **“Cynical”** “For this, I thought about walking through a city, flicking my hair, and being like, ‘Do you know what? I’m going to go to the bar, I’m going to have a good time.’ It’s when you’re a bit over it—all the fights and everything else with this partner, or with this person. You’re romanticizing your life, and then you run into him, and you’re a bit like, ‘Oh.’ It feels a bit more play-by-play of how that works, and the romanticization to get yourself out of that headspace. It’s about that and about city girls, and how everyone chats, and how it just gets around, summing up what it’s like to be a girl in the city, heartbroken.” **“Favourite Girl”** “‘Favourite Girl’ is a little pop banger. We love her. She’s so fun. I made her with Maverick Sabre and Zach Nahome, who are two longtime collaborators of mine that I love working with. We did ‘Kerosene’ before, the three of us. ‘Favourite Girl’ is tongue-in-cheek, it’s a flirty little track.” **“I Keep Losing Sleep”** “‘I Keep Losing Sleep’ took ages to get done. We had a loop that went on for about six hours, it was this big jam that we did in Paris with me, Zach, and Mav. ‘I Keep Losing Sleep’ was literally a 30-second clip of that jam and we worked off that little part of it and built it out. Lyrically, for me, it’s that point where you’re pretending you’re fine in the record, you’re like, ‘Everything’s good, I’m good, I’m coming back.’ But you’re not taking care of yourself and you’re like, ‘I keep losing sleep over this thing and it’s not helping.’” **“9-5”** “We wrote this in Montmartre, Paris in the studio. You can’t not want to make music there. It used to be Philippe Zdar’s studio, and it’s super small, everyone that works there has worked there forever. It’s super, it just brings something else out of you. Writing this, I was away from my partner at the time and I was missing him. It’s a love song, that kind of ‘I’ll go anywhere for you. I’ll do anything for you because I love you.’ That’s a part in the relationship where everything feels more romantic because you’re in love.” **“Decimal”** “This is a track also made in Montmartre with \[producer\] Andrew Wells. We were just having fun at this point, in a really good writing space. He was like, ‘What do you want this one to feel like?’ and I said, ‘Do you know what? Let me strut.’ He brought in this whole idea of a dance element that we get with the synths and this expanding bit and it just ended up happening. It’s quite a sexy tune. It’s just about finding someone, meeting them across the room, and being drawn to them, and losing inhibitions, and diving into that desire.” **“Silhouette”** “‘Silhouette’ is the opposite to ‘9-5.’ They’re like day and night. It’s one we also wrote in Paris at a different point in the year when things weren’t going so well. But it’s also an important for the story of the album, we’re exploring all sides of a relationship. This one is getting to a point where it’s ‘You know that it hurts me, why do you do it?’ and coming face to face with the pain of that and the loss of trust and the self-destructive thing comes into that a lot as well. I feel like a casualty in the fucking records that I made. It’s a heartbreak song.” **“Stay Home”** “This is about falling for someone, that point where everything’s a bit soft and sweet. Then I was like, ‘Do you know what? My family and my friends have been so important to me through everything and they’re really what represents love to me, there’s no chance I’m making my first record and not having them on it.’ I was like, ‘Let’s do it, let’s go to the pub and we’ll get everyone down with some drinks, and we’ll do a recording of the chorus.’ So we did that, which is so cute, so messy but so cute. Through relationships, through everything, through different points in your life, who do you look to as real love? That’s family and friends for me.” **“One Way Ticket”** “This is a sad one, about someone that I lost in my life. So many things are happening now and, \[in\] the last couple of years have been happening—and it’s sad that he’s not here to see them. He’s someone that I wish I could share that with and so this is a love letter to him a little bit, just to let him know what’s going on, and to be like, ‘Wow, you always said this would happen and now you’re not here to see it, but you’re here.’” **“Brighter Day”** “‘Brighter Day’ is the overarching moment where you look back on everything that’s happened, and you go, ‘Fucking hell, it’s mad!’—and watching someone go and accepting that that’s what’s happened and where you are in your life. It’s appreciating every moment for what it has been and being hopeful for the next round.”
A debut album that captures those precious moments when the world gets deliciously fuzzy around the edges and everything feels possible.
Reflecting on her past, present, and future, Biig Piig delivers catchy dance tunes as well as softer, laid-back and introspective tracks on her debut album.
“It’s a bit of a sad banger. Crying at the club: my favourite thing to do!” Biig Piig says of ‘Ponytail’, a short statement that encapsulates the home of
Switching between English and Spanish vocals, Irish singer-songwriter Jess Smyth’s genre-hopping set feels most at home in the quieter moments
11:11 by Biig Piig album review by Sam Franzini for Northern Transmissions. The artist's LP is now available via Sony/RCA