Eliza “Miss E” Noxon personifies the slow build. She was all of 12 when her first single, the hauntingly offbeat “Hummingbird,” debuted on the hit prison series Orange Is The New Black in 2015. A decade later, the Southern California native holds degrees in education and interdisciplinary artistic studies from Brown University. She’s worked for a New York City puppeteer, milked cows on a dairy farm in Vermont and spent a year as sailing instructor on a schooner in the Caribbean. Right now, she’s readying her debut LP, produced by Rilo Kiley bassist Pierre de Reeder, her longtime cheerleader and collaborator.
An intoxicating slice of slow-build indie drama, “You” portends great things for the self-released Good Monsters With Bad Habits, available February 27. Noxon is a big fan of Feist and Big Thief, and her new single hints at the visceral beauty of both without losing an excruciating sense of self shaped by profound loss. An exorcism of sorts, “You” was written in a chilly dorm room in May 2021, more than a year after the loss of her brother.
“The grief was still all consuming,” says Noxon. “I felt isolated from the people around me, stuck in a loop of missing my brother, seeing him in everything, wishing I could turn back time.”
And yet there’s unexpected beauty in the way the song’s impermeable darkness and anger cascade to a soul-cleansing conclusion. “I found a way to scream and kick and channel all the rage, fear and loss I felt into something I could use to connect with people,” says Noxon. “The song really came alive in the studio with the addition of Jake Reed’s gorgeous, driving drums and Pierre’s masterful production. When I play or listen to the song today, it feels like a mass catharsis. I hear the voices of everyone who’s ever lost their person and had to figure out how to keep living with that hole in their heart.”
We’re proud to premiere Eliza Noxon’s “You.”
—Hobart Rowland
