Colorado-born singer-songwriter and multimedia artist Riley Max shares her latest single, ‘Year One’.
A more reflective soundtrack to your Friday, ‘Year One’ is a folk-pop track that looks into Max’s journey through personal struggles with her mental and physical health. Looking back on a difficult period in her life, the track captures how far she has come and the brightness that’s on the horizon.
“I wrote ‘Year One’ when I was having a really tough time during my first year at Harvard. I was coming back from having some issues with my vocal cords, and I was dealing with a lot of other mental and physical health issues, as well as being completely and totally responsible for my life for the first time ever. It was a lot. I wasn’t sure when—or if—I was ever going to start feeling like myself again, musically or otherwise. So this song means a lot to me, because every time I listen to it I remember how far I’ve come. The animation was completed in a class that I took last year, and I knew immediately once I finished it that I had to turn it into a full music video, because I was really happy with the way it turned out. It was so rewarding to be able to express my feelings through such a uniquely creative medium, and it really made me fall in love with stop motion animation even more — to the point that I’m going to pursue a stop-motion thesis this year! It’s always a joy to be able to combine my many artistic loves.”
Riley Max
Max first introduced herself with her debut album ROY G BIV, which she wrote and recorded at just eighteen years old. Now twenty-one and a senior at Harvard University studying Art, Film and Visual Studies, Max continues to grow as a multimedia artist, with her second album set to arrive this fall.
The accompanying music video features an animated segment that is currently on display at Harvard’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts as part of the exhibition No Slop, No Second Screen: Animation–the hard-won image.
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