Artists You Should Know: Heart-Wrenching Harmonies Pour from Mermaid's New Single and Music Video "On A Cloud"

Los Angeles-based Mermaid has shared a new song off their forthcoming album with the release of the tender lullaby “On A Cloud.” Comprised of singers/songwriters Brittany Campbell and Candace Quarrels, the alt-R&B duo continues to elicit nothing but anticipation for the arrival of their debut LP Iridescence, out on November 17th. Their latest single offers a poignantly lo-fi look at a very specific and heart-wrenching form of sadness that finds itself entwined in their quieting harmonies.

Written during a period of emotional anguish “On A Cloud” gifts a soothing balm against the cloistering effects of personal despair. At its core, the song traces a dark period in Campbell’s life, one in which she found herself suddenly alienated from her mother after revealing her relationship with Quarrels. After coming out her mother stopped speaking to her and a few months into their estrangement this song was born.

“This was the only song I was able to write for a while,” Campbell explained. “It’s about sadness and experiencing a new kind of heartbreak. It’s also about the inability to see or feel anything but my sadness. I’d never experienced anything like it before, and there wasn’t anything else for a long time.”

The result is a song that teeters over the devastation of finding one’s relationship with a parent in shambles, even as it grips tightly to a love that offers nothing but comfort and support. “Rain came down,” they sing against a solitarily winding guitar chord. “She was lifted / On a cloud to glide away / Glide away.” Their luminous words float in the gloam of gently ebbing tones and textures that blink in the background.

“On A Cloud” is joined by an intimate music video that was filmed by Ash Lawson at Portia Street Studios. True to the track’s openhearted and vulnerable spirit, the video follows both Campbell and Quarrels as they perform the track together. Lending its already deeply personal lyricism and somber melody a certain bittersweet beauty. Yet, it also highlights the song’s earnest search for solace in the company of someone who understands and shares in your pain.