Today, Faye Webster returns with ‘Lifetime,’ a stunning and sparse new single that comes with a companion music video directed by Kyle Ng of Brain Dead.
‘Lifetime’ comes on the heels of ‘But Not Kiss,’ another single released earlier this summer to wide critical praise, which the New York Times said “sounds like a strange, woozy dream,” and Vulture named one of the Best New Songs of 2023 So Far saying “all the usual hallmarks of Webster’s songs are still there, from her soft-spoken delivery to that sighing lap steel, just shaken up and rearranged into a song full of (and about) quiet thrills.”
WATCH THE “LIFETIME” VIDEO
I Know I’m Funny haha, the 24-year-old artist’s most recent full length was also her most fully realized effort to date. Though she usually tackles album-making in a song-by-song approach, 2020 necessitated a more intensive recording process. Webster immediately knew the Athens-based players she wanted to record with and headed into the studio with producer/mixer Drew Vandenberg (Deerhunter, Of Montreal, Kishi Bashi). They assembled a band including Harold Brown on drums, Bryan Howard on bass, Nic Rosen on keys and Matt “Pistol” Stoessel on pedal steel – one of the most reliable and essential musical elements of Webster’s records.
A self-taught guitarist by elementary school, with a long tradition of bluegrass and country players in her family, Webster was bound to be a musician. At just 16 she released her debut album, Run & Tell. Like other teenage phenoms Jackson Browne and Laura Marling, it exhibited stunning lyrical and artistic clarity. Her Southern roots were obvious but Webster had more than country music inspiring her worldview – she was deeply embedded in the culture of her hometown, Atlanta. Lil Yachty was her classmate, she was sneaking out to see underground shows and fortuitously had befriended rapper/producer Ethereal while in High School. She went on to sign to Awful Records, making her label-mates with Father, Playboi Carti and Ethereal. To the outsider, an odd home but Webster shared the same weirdo art-kid ethos of her label mates – impossible to peg, endlessly experimenting, making shit, doing stuff, genre-fluid rule breakers.
Her 2017 self-titled release on Awful brought her enough notoriety to get her signed to Secretly Canadian, the home of ANOHNI, Yoko Ono and more. Two years later, she released Atlanta Millionaires Club to widespread critical acclaim. “Few R&B albums have a pedal steel; few alt-country albums have a rap feature. Faye Webster’s Atlanta Millionaires Club somehow has all of the above. Even stranger, she manages to smooth these apparent contradictions into serene folk-pop with a mellow soul tinge. Webster is an anomaly, but her arty individualism represents an important common value,” said Pitchfork.
A multi-hyphenate talent, Webster also is a successful photographer who has shot campaigns for Killer Mike, Offset, D.R.A.M, Nike and other brands. She is a sometimes model and full-time yoyo enthusiast. Webster incorporates her yoyo skills into her live show. In 2020 Barack Obama included her single “Better Distractions,” on his playlist of favorite songs and she also released the single “In A Good Way.” Both songs appear on I Know I’m Funny haha.
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