Life runs in rhythmic loops, from the endless rotations of the earth to the running of tides and yearly rebirth of spring. Rachel Bobbitt knows that the bottom of those cycles can feel pretty chaotic. “Every woman I’ve ever talked to is in some amount of pain almost all the time,” the emerging singer-songwriter says. “That could be physical pain, emotional pain, familial pain, but it’s there in cycles.” On her piercing and profound new EP, The Ceiling Could Collapse, Bobbitt picks through the dizzying rubble of folk and indie rock for moments of resonant emotion and frames them in heartbreaking lyrics and openhearted expanses.
Bobbitt made a name for herself on Vine as a teenager, uploading covers of pop hits and all-time classics to the now-defunct social media site. As her profile rose, Bobbitt found herself overwhelmed rather than inspired. “It was exciting to be doing what I loved, but it was difficult to be observed by that many people at that age where I simultaneously wanted to just shut myself in,” she says. “I’m grateful it ended when it did because it gave me time to step back and think about what I wanted to create for myself.” She soon found herself in a jazz program before leaving it during the pandemic to focus on her own music
After refining the six songs of The Ceiling Could Collapse on her own, Bobbitt brought together collaborator and co-producer Justice Der and drummer Stephen Bennett to record the EP at Bennett’s studio in Brampton, Ontario. The trio spent a week and a half cracking open Bobbitt’s compositions, leaving space to experiment with different vocal takes and sonic palettes. Throughout the EP, Bobbitt and Der’s arrangements strike into the deep waters of Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver, and Big Thief, and Grammy-nominated mixer Jorge Elbrecht rounds everything to a glacial shine.
Bobbitt grew up in Nova Scotia but now calls Toronto home after moving to the city for university at age 17. She believes growing up out East has left its mark on the songs. “I feel like it gave me an appreciation for more landscape visual kind of introspective writing sessions, like going out to parks and going out for walks and stuff like that cause that’s just what I did a lot growing up. And I think as well, more my family than Nova Scotia, the physical place. Like I think my family really is a very important part of my life, and so they make their way into my writing a lot.”
One of the songs on her latest EP, Gemini Ties, was written for her twin brother. “I actually sat my family down and like had like a little EP playing session before it came out, which was really special and yeah, we hugged and he teared up, it was very wholesome, very sweet. And I was definitely nervous. Like I was much more nervous to show it to him than anyone else. Cause it’s about him, and it would kind of suck if he was like, hmm, like meh on it. But yeah, he loves it. He thinks it’s really sweet, and I think he feels similarly towards me as well. So it, yeah, kind of makes sense.”
The EP’s opening track is More. It’s a cinematic song with a huge sound that sounds like the soundtrack to a long road trip. “I feel like it was the first one we recorded for the project and I think it really just set the tone and the precedent for the rest of the songs. Cause we recorded it, and then Jorge Elbrecht did like a test mix on it to see you know, if we wanted to work with him and if he wanted to work with us and kind of how the vibes were and he did an incredible job. I think More was definitely the track that was at the forefront of our minds when we were recording and mixing all the other songs for the project.
I’ve been getting a lot more into kind of more shoegazey kind of guitar sounds, so I think we were trying to approach it from that angle of being a bit fuzzier, being a bit more ambient, but also being really present. And that’s something that I also try to do with my vocals because I love a shoegazey kind of ambient track, but I also really like the elements to be still fairly distinct. So I like still being able to hear all the lyrics and still being able to really distinguish a guitar line.”
She says there was a lot of music in the house when she was growing up, but her parents’ music taste wasn’t what you might expect. “My grandfather on my mom’s side just played a lot of music in general. Like he’d play the fiddle and we’d all kind of dance around in the kitchen, and he played guitar a lot and piano, like, he was just kind of one of those people that never took a lesson in his life and just had a very natural inclination towards music and towards playing. And my mom would sing a lot and play piano, and she really liked seventies folk, like Simon and Garfunkel and Joni Mitchell and that type of vibe. And then my dad had such a strange dad rock taste because he’s not like a Beatles dad or like a classic rock dad. He was very into My Chemical Romance and Blink 182, like really alternative, like pop-punk almost. I love him for it. He’s very unapologetic about it. So it’s like Joni Mitchell or, you know, The Fray, like it’s just so polar opposite.”
Recently Bobbitt has been discovering the back catalogue of Broken Social Scene but she tells me that if she could choose anyone to open up for on tour, it would be Brooklyn’s finest. “I feel like my immediate answer is The National just because they are very God-level to me. Matt Berninger’s writing is just incredible. And I feel like I drew so much from them in terms of the anthemic, large kind of aspects to the EP. I think they have just such an interesting energy because a lot of times the drums are so driving and they’re so energetic. And then Matt’s voice just sucks you in, but then outside of that, it’s just this moving machine. They’re insane.”
Watch the full interview with Rachel Bobbitt below:
THE CEILING COULD COLLAPSE IS OUT NOW VIA FANTASY
Photo credit – Paige Paton
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