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Music


070 SHAKE ON HER EPIC NEW ALBUM PETRICHOR—AND CHANNELING THE TUMULT OF TRUE LOVE
INTO MUSIC

By Liam Hess
November 18, 2024
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Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo
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070 Shake thrives in extremes. The genre-bending musician—who first rose to fame
for her collaborations with Kanye West before delivering a one-two punch of
inventive and eclectic albums via 2020’s Modus Vivendi and 2022’s You Can’t Kill
Me—might move from mumbled trap to thunderous power rock from one track to the
next, or from twinkling ambient soundscapes to theatrical orchestral strings.
(Anchoring it all, however, is Shake’s supple, shape-shifting voice, which
glides with ease between spoken-word rap and a Rat Pack–worthy croon, or even
into full-fledged choral singing made from her own stacked vocals.)

It’s an exploratory spirit that has never been expressed more boldly than on her
third album, Petrichor, released last Friday. Charting the rollercoaster ride of
falling head over heels in love—in all its pleasure and pain—the record flits
from the distorted, Depeche Mode–esque synths of “Elephant” (“Last night got
really rowdy, / I think we should talk about it”) to the epic gothic balladry of
“Vagabond” (“Fantasize about a home with you, / Let the fire warm my bones with
you”) as if she’s picking up her relationship and examining it at every angle.
And that’s without mentioning the album’s collaborative efforts, including the
power ballad “Into Your Garden,” with a guest slot from former City Girls rapper
JT, or perhaps most unexpectedly, a soul-stirring cover of This Mortal Coil’s
“Song to the Siren,” with an appearance from Courtney Love.


Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo



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But Petrichor also showcases Shake’s ability to produce work that seems to exist
slightly outside of time and place (even if many will surely be picking through
her lyrics for details on her two-plus-year relationship with The Idol and
Nosferatu star Lily-Rose Depp). That strange blend of memory and mystery is
reflected in the title: The smell of petrichor, Shake explains, is a memory from
her childhood in New Jersey, and the scent of wet earth and tarmac after a
rainstorm. “It doesn’t have a specific story,” she says. “It’s just a feeling,
and when I smell it, it feels timeless. It’s more of a representation of that;
of what it is to be timeless. It’s a reflection of the music itself.”

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Equally timeless is the visual world Shake has built around the album, from the
striking cover—an eerie image of her eye and ear in proximity, seen through a
gauzy black-and-white haze—to the listening party she staged in Los Angeles a
few weeks back, featuring choreographed ballet, projections, and a live
orchestra. In the music video for “Winter Baby / New Jersey Blues”—another
example of her willingness to ricochet wildly between genres, it zips from
doo-wop to a Beach Boys homage in the space of a single song—Depp appears as
Shake’s muse under the twinkling lights of a seedy dive bar, hitting play on the
jukebox and twirling her way around the room in a shiny pink mini dress and
white lace gloves.





Mostly, though, Shake prefers to stay out of the glare of the spotlight. Since
moving to Los Angeles in 2021, she’s found that she’s happiest holed up at her
regular recording studio in Malibu, looking out at the ocean, surrounded by
nature. “I feel like I can see the world better out here,” she says with a zen
smile. Still, she must have something a little more rowdy up her sleeve to
celebrate Petrichor’s release? “Me and my buddy Guillermo at 424 might be
throwing a rager, so if you’re in LA, you got to come through,” she says,
laughing. “Oh, man, I might have to stick the red wine though—just to keep it
classy.”


Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vogue: Hi Shake. Where am I finding you today?



070 Shake: I’m in Malibu at a studio I work from here, looking out at the water…

That’s where you recorded a lot of Petrichor, right? How are you feeling with
the album just about to come out?

Yeah, actually, I finished it in Malibu. I started it in Stockholm and finished
in Malibu, which was a real juxtaposition. And I’m feeling good, honestly. I’m
not thinking about it too much. I like to just act like it’s not happening, and
right now I’m just making more music.



You also staged the ballet show in Los Angeles last week, which looked pretty
incredible. How was that experience for you? Was it something you’d visualized
from the very beginning of making the record?

It was a vision that I really wanted to see come to life, and we didn’t have
much time to rehearse—we pulled it together in one week, tops. But it was a
beautiful experience. I’d been thinking about it for a long time, but maybe
indirectly, because I watched [Gaspar Noé’s] Climax a lot while I was making it,
and I guess the record was inspired by dance. But I didn’t think of actually
fusing it with the music until later.

How soon after you finished touring You Can’t Kill Me did you start working on
the songs for Petrichor? Are you someone who likes to let one project bleed into
the next?

Oh, shit. I don’t even know. [Laughs.] Time doesn’t really compute in my brain.
There were a couple of songs I’d already written while touring, but it was
really sparked by the relationship I’m in now—that experience inspired me.
Musically there’s always a cutoff, as I wrote some songs that weren’t right for
it. But I’m always making music. I’m writing music right now, even though the
album’s coming out in a few days. It’s a constant thing.

Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo

Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo

You’ve always been an artist who has defied genre, but it feels especially bold
on Petrichor, where you can jump between decades and styles in the space of a
single song. Did you set out to create something that would show every aspect of
what you can do as a musician, or was it more instinctual?

I definitely don’t have a premeditated story that I want to tell. I let the
story tell itself, if that makes sense. I don’t really believe in starting an
album with a concept in mind. I think that comes after, once you’ve expressed
yourself truthfully, and then you find the story within it. I can’t try to plan
what I’m going to go through while I’m writing; it has to just happen. That’s
pretty much how it goes for me. I never want to feel boxed into anything at all.



Petrichor is described in the press materials as a gothic epic, and you’ve
already mentioned that you drew on cinema for inspiration. What were some of the
films that informed it most strongly?

I was watching Persona a lot. That’s a movie that was often on the screen while
I was making it. And The Color of Pomegranates as well, and Climax, which I
already mentioned. I was kind of just keeping those three on loop, honestly. I
think I’ve seen Persona now like 15 times without the sound. As soon as I go
into the studio, I put it on the screen, and then I work to it.

Would you ever want to write a film score?

Oh, yeah. That’s one of my biggest dreams. I’d be so proud to get the
opportunity to score a film. A lot of what I write gets stripped back because I
want to meet the listener halfway. Sometimes I’ll have a 10-minute intro, and
it’s just the most beautiful instrumentation you’ve heard. But then I have to
get back to reality and be like, All right, I need to cut this down to two
minutes so that it’s intelligible and works as part of the album. But I’m also
working on a classical piece with my buddy Johan Lenox, who’s a composer, so
that I can be completely free in that—so I can make those 15-minute songs that I
want to make.

Are there other creative mediums that you pull from, or that feed you
creatively?

I’m not a good painter, but I do like to paint sometimes, and I like to watch
people paint. Art is a major driving force for me. But it’s really just
observing the world in general, that’s where I get most of my inspiration—even
just going to breakfast and studying the people around me. That’s why I came out
to Malibu as well, just being able to be in this openness and to observe nature
a little more. I’m from the East Coast, and I felt like I could see the world
better out here.

Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo

Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo

You’ve mentioned before that you need to detach yourself from the world
sometimes to create, and Los Angeles feels like a better place than New York to
exist in your own little bubble for as long as you need to at times.



Exactly. If I don’t want to see people, I can accomplish that very easily out
here. And if I do want to, it’ll be intentional. Plus, I just love the fact that
I can see all these landscapes. I grew up in the city, being from Jersey, and I
don’t like how the buildings break up my line of vision. I’ve been blessed with
this space in Malibu that I like to work out of, and it’s just the most
beautiful landscape. I drive a lot up north. I go to Yosemite. I’ll go to Joshua
Tree. I’ll go to the dunes out here; I don’t mind driving. A couple of months
ago, me and my girlfriend drove to Big Sur, and it took us eight hours, and I
was just going nonstop. It’s a good time.

You touched on the fact that this album is rooted in your current relationship
with Lily-Rose, and it definitely feels like it encompasses every aspect of
being in love, from the highs to the more turbulent moments.

Because that’s just the truth of love. In my experience of love, it can’t exist
without pain. And I think that’s what a lot of it is too: embracing the pain
that you can only get from love. It’s a particular kind of pain. Being a human
is not easy. We’re born from pain—it’s the first thing we know, the screams of
being born. It feels the same with love as well. You have to go through the
wringer a little bit to figure out your dance. But yeah, I was just embracing
the beauty and embracing the pain because that’s the yin and the yang of love,
in my experience.

Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo

As someone who is obviously very private but is also dealing with a higher level
of public interest in that romance, how do you go about preserving the intimate
parts of your relationship while channeling them into your art? How do you
negotiate that balance?

To be honest, I’m just being genuine. I’m inspired by that romance, and it’s my
truth. And I think, even if there might be a mystery in my public expression,
there’s a truth that I hold within my art, because I don’t think that you have
to know me in any other way. The people that know me in real life, my family and
friends know me in that way, but I don’t think that the world has to know me in
any other way besides my artistic expression. And what’s going on in my personal
life bleeds into the art naturally. I have a muse, and it bleeds into the art,
and that’s the only place I really feel I have to let people in—just through the
art.



Was it an obvious decision to have Lily-Rose in the “Winter Baby / New Jersey
Blues” video?

Well, I mean, I wouldn’t want to do that with any other girl. I wouldn’t be able
to. It just wouldn’t feel as good. And she’s just incredible. She’s so inspiring
and beautiful. We’re both artists in different ways, and it just made sense.


Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo

Tell me a little more about what you were channeling on the fashion front
throughout the visuals for Petrichor. Were there any specific references you
were pulling from there?

I was feeling very inspired by the 1940s and the ’50s—there’s always a part of
me that loves getting dressed up, and I was looking to the pinstripe suits.
Also, I’m really into denim at the moment. I’ve been wearing denim all year. I
think it’s become my comfort zone: a denim jacket with jeans. Simple and
classic.

I know that you’ve spoken about making music as a kind of medicine for you—did
that hold true for Petrichor as well?

Well, I think it’s given me a chance to release a lot of chaos that I’ve had
going on within me, and it’s therapy. It’s given me a lot of peace, definitely,
and focus—and just a lot of confidence in where I can go after this. Everything
I create feels like it’s paving the way for something new.



And what do you hope it can give your fans?

I just want it to be something that people can rely on. If you’re feeling
something intensely, and you don’t have anywhere to go, you can come to this
music, and it will be there for you. All artists wish for their music to be
healing, I think, and that’s the basis of everything for me—that it can make
someone feel better and less alone.

Photo: Vincent Giovinazzo





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Liam Hess is American Vogue’s living editor, overseeing coverage of homes,
travel, food, design, and weddings remotely from London. Between editing
lifestyle stories, he can also be found writing about music, film, TV, and
reviewing fashion collections in London for Vogue Runway. Previously, he has
worked at Dazed, i-D, and... Read more
Living Editor




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