Words by Veronica Anaya / Cover image by Meghan Hancock
As someone who listens to music as a sound-first listener, who thrives on the ambience created by instruments and production, Alana Markel‘s debut EP Winter Starlet creates sonically ambient worlds within each individual song; indescribable spaces that are warm yet haunting, impossible to forget yet reminding me of nothing else.
25-year-old Alana Markel is a dream-pop singer-songwriter based in New York City who herself describes the EP as “a collection of songs nurtured by our most underrated season,” six songs stimulating the senses like the first winter frost, beckoning the listener on an emotional journey supported by complex, layered yet minimalistic production and impressionistic lyrics.
The EP opens with “Somewhere I thought,” a delicate song setting the tone of the world Markel goes on to paint, with gently picked guitar nearly submerged by layers of computer blips, electronic hums, and wordless, alien-sounding processed vocals. Into this dreamy, otherworldly atmosphere her whisper-like vocals come in slow, lingering on each word, creating a sense of innocence and comfort.
As the song unfolds, the phrase “liminal space” keeps recurring to me. Markel excels at creating a feeling reminiscent of nostalgia, calmness, and loneliness at once, her voice melting each word into the song’s hushed production and pockets of silence like visualizing oneself in an empty room.
Each song that follows creates its own distinct sonic world, masterfully transitioning from one to the next, like floating through a galaxy created by Markel. “Pacer Test” and “Magnesium” are slightly “livelier” while not breaking the hypnotic spell created by Markel’s elongated, sultry vocals. On “Pacer Test,” Markel’s voice is more foregrounded—her graceful, alluring accent working hand in hand with the production, letting the listener hold on to every single word. This is even more true with “Magnesium” in which she addresses the listener directly, even as the overall ambience and ambiguity remains, with words seemingly meant not to be merely heard but to be more directly absorbed and felt (“i am just a puddle for you i am just a spill laying on the counter for you…will you soak up all that’s mine today”). Waiting and yearning for something to come and bring her in, the listener is encouraged to sit with Markel’s muse in real time and space as she thinks and sings.
Opening Winter Starlet‘s second half, “What are you missing?” directly asks the question implied elsewhere on the EP. Lasting only a minute and forty seconds, Markel’s voice and the instrumentation blend into one another, making it difficult to discern whether she’s “saying” something or simply harmonizing with the sonics. But then, right as the track reaches its peak, you hear, “what are you missing?” as the song continues on in a ethereal, eerie state, with listeners left to ponder the titular question as the track drifts off into a series of watery, whale-like hums.
As the EP approaches its end, penultimate track “Through the Waves” crests with a surge of heightened emotion (“can you feel my sadness through the waves through the miles are you growing tired“). As with “Pacer Test,” beats are prominent in the mix, in contrast to the ambient instrumentals in the tracks surrounding it, with lyrics describing the feeling of being caught up in waves of emotions, trying in vain to understand or control them, or escape them, as they swallow you whole (“can’t always get just what you want try to bend it’s no use every season runs its course”).
photos by @akarialishio
Finally, “It means nothing now” speaks on “something [that] now means nothing” but which clearly lingers on—even if the lyrics’ stripped-down, haiku-like structure barely hints at who or what she’s speaking of—matched to a musical backing that’s contemplative and almost nostalgic, thus ending Winter Starlet on a note of loneliness and longing (“shut my eyes on the last summer so where are you now where are you now where are you“) seemingly caught between past and present.
Drawing on layered production elements to create this sense of liminality, Alana Markel’s Winter Starlet evokes a dreamy sense of mid-air suspension betwixt and between so that when it reaches its final note it’s like coming back to reality from a daydream. Markel skillfully guides us through this journey, giving listeners space to open themselves up to being vulnerable and empathetic. Through impressionistic storytelling, strong lyricism, and evocative production, Markel creates a sonic space, magically driven, that’s incredibly hard to let go of…
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And you don’t even have to let go if you go and see Alana Markel play live at either (or both!) of these two upcoming dates: the first being tonight, Saturday the 9th of August, at the “Dream Pop Prom” to be held in the gymnasium under the Church of the Village which sounds way, way cooler than any prom has a right to be alongside Alex Argot and Babe City; and the second being on August 26th at Night Club 101…and in the meantime you can enjoy the music video below for Alana’s single “Deuces” from January 2025, a single which is not to be found on Winter Starlet due (one assumes) to its overall more autumn-y vibe.
WINTER STARLET CREDITS:
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Editor’s note: The title for this piece derives from the song below–a Julee Cruise cover of an Elvis Presley song (!) that puts us in our feels much the same way as Winter Starlet not to mention the thematic overlap…