ZOE GREENBAUM – PRETTY THING – SINGLE REVIEW

Zoë Greenbaum is an eclectic singer/songwriter from New York City. Her life’s journey is as off the beaten path as her music, with a background in filmmaking as well as her time in Japan spent drawing manga. Of course, Zoë draws all of her own album art.

It was while Zoë was preparing to make We Are Bleach, a short film about pansexual punk rockers in a toxic relationship set at The Dublin Castle, that she got together with an old friend, Ian Dench (EMF), to write a song together. One song quickly spiraled into 15 and when EMF got back together and went on tour, Ian left Zoë with the songs to do as she would. So she set out to find the most passionate young producers she could to create what will soon be her debut album, Lost in London (coming 2025).

In 2024, Zoë released the lead singles off the album, a punchy yet melodic old-school punk song with a bridge in Japanese ‘Platonic Fun,’ a bouncy disco-punk foot-stomper ‘Free,’ a languishingly sensual rock infused retro R&B track, ‘I Want My Time With You,’ a hopelessly romantic 1950s-nostalgic Jazz ballad, ‘I Adore You,’ and a deliriously madcap jazz/punk fusion track “Greenhouse Edith & Her Smoking Crow” all produced by Francis Simmons-Barry of Francis Wolfe.

Zoë’s final single of the year, Pretty Thing (released on 20.12), is the beginning of a totally new follow-up project. Penned alone and produced by the brilliant multi-instrumentalist Jack Lester-George (Mutual Blue, Robin Green), Pretty Thing is yet another stylistic departure. A haunting acoustic ballad in the 1960s folk tradition, Zoë calls this the saddest song she’s ever written – and ever hopes to write.

The final three singles and two album tracks for Lost in London are currently in production with Jimi Gardner, an astoundingly creative and prodigious guitarist and producer from the South of England whose 2021-22 residency at The Dublin Castle was both brief and legendary. Zoë and Jimi met making We Are Bleach and have been collaborators ever since.

The music video for Free directed by Lee Thomas (Trampolene – Storm Heaven) is out now and a music video for Greenhouse Edith will be released in January. Early reviews of the video describe Zoë as “serving on a silver platter 1930’s film star elegance with a debaucherous secret dark side.”

Zoë made her debut with the Lost in London songs earlier this year at Easycome at The Old Dispensary, Camberwell, which was captured by South London’s greatest institution, Mr. Lou Smith himself. Zoë and her band will maker a much anticipated return at the Dublin Castle on 28.1 with Nick Diver and a surprise headliner (Camden royalty) to be announced mid January.

Listen to ‘Pretty Thing’ here now