Asheville, North Carolina singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza first picked up the guitar as a child at the suggestion of her mother, who was seeking relief for De Souza’s intense shyness. By 11, she’d begun writing original songs. For De Souza, a self-described outcast, loneliness isn’t just a go-to songwriting topic—it’s the reason she began making music in the first place, and its presence is unshakeable. In 2018, she assembled a band at a friend’s house to record I Love My Mom, a collection of the best songs she’d written over the previous few years. A new reissue from Saddle Creek re-introduces De Souza as an undeniable force, divulging her restless thoughts through folksy garage-pop. Originally intended for only a small circle of people to hear, I Love My Mom is imperfect, unabashed, and endearing.
Now in her mid-20s, De Souza explores alienation in much the same way that Phil Elverum, one of her inspirations, has explored the facets of death: How do you keep going when misery seems inevitable? I Love My Mom doesn’t attempt to find the answer, but to navigate each phase of solitude as it arrives. The album’s centerpiece, the jaunty “Take Off Ur Pants,” assesses her perceived shortcomings relative to the rest of the population: “When am I gonna go back to school like everybody else does?/When am I gonna start being cool like everybody else is?” She describes mental and emotional woes both in quotidien metaphors about dirty dishes and in dramatic, nihilistic terms: “I need to be kicked, maybe fucked, maybe told I’m in the way,” she repeats on opener “How I Get Myself Killed.” Her voice flits between breathy murmurs and emphatic wallops; at times, her vibrato resembles that of fellow Asheville resident Angel Olsen.
I Love My Mom isn’t explicitly a breakup album; its subjects are too ambiguous to fall into the “relationship” category. De Souza’s songs pinpoint the unrequited crushes, the empty hookups, the unsung situationships—seemingly minor entanglements that might not evoke the full agony of heartbreak, but when compounded, become steady omens of romantic futility. Instead of languishing there, she offers subdued reminders of love in other forms: “I don’t need anyone to love me/I love my mom more than any of you fools,” she sings on “Ghost.” The titular phrase feels like a small yet significant victory.
At times, De Souza sounds like she’s on track to reaching the closest thing to inner peace, or at least a kind of passive resignation. “I’m not the girl you thought I was, but I am close,” she sings on “Good Heart.” Moments like these are fleeting, instantly sobered by either others’ rejection or her own dissatisfaction. But weirdos, outcasts, and introverts are good at spending time alone. De Souza channels this message on “Ghost,” where her gentle deflation of a partner’s ego leads up to one of the album’s biggest kiss-offs: “I like sleeping in your bed/But honey, I’ve got my own at home.” It’s a subtle and gentle reassurance of the solitary worlds we create for ourselves.
Buy: Rough Trade
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