The 25-year-old singer-songwriter Allison Ponthier has released her debut single, “Cowboy,” today via Interscope Records. The song is today’s Apple Music World First track featured on The Zane Lowe Show. “Cowboy” is both a touching homage to her Texan roots and a bold coming out statement that finds the Brooklynite telling her story only the way she can.
“Cowboy”
is accompanied by a bold, statement-making video that perfectly pairs
with the new artist’s visually evocative lyricism. “I mostly just try to
make music that speaks to me,” she says, “because I know there’s no way
I’m the only person in the world who’s felt like this.”
“Saw
the cutters through barbed wire / I didn’t know I could come out,”
Ponthier sings over gauzy guitar tones, referencing the journey from
Texas to New York that it took for her to accept her own sexuality.
“Cowboy” ushers new listeners into a fully realized world of sound and
sight, a place where difference is endlessly celebrated through melodies
and harmonies that are both familiar and new all at once. Written
entirely by Ponthier, the song is co-produced by Sam O.B., Michael
Freesh, Otis English, and Brandon Shoop.
Directed by the visionary Jordan Bahat (responsible for Christine and the Queens’ “Girlfriend”), the “Cowboy” video
finds Allison rambling through field and forest as the stars twinkle
behind her and UFOs circle above her. It’s equal parts aesthetically
high camp and emotionally warm, with the singer paying tribute to her Bible Belt roots and fascination with eccentrics like Elvira and Vincent Price in
both her red-carpet ready styling and winking visual references
(including a horse in a skeleton onesie and a dancing carton of smokes).
“Cowboy” is, in every sense, the B-movie homage of your wildest dreams.
“I probably watch movies more than I listen to music,” she says of the
video. “That’s why all my songs are stories.”
The
first release from Ponthier’s forthcoming debut EP, “Cowboy” echoes
Ponthier’s main mission as an artist: “A lot of my songs are about being
uncomfortable in your own skin but getting to know yourself better,
figuring out who you really are.”
