Zsela (ZHAY-la) knows that artistic arrivals take time. The ambitious artist emerges with Big For
You — a debut album that is raw, vulnerable, and a force to be reckoned with. Produced alongside
close collaborators Daniel Aged (Frank Ocean, Kelela) and Gabe Wax (The War On Drugs, Soccer
Mommy), Zsela’s first full-length album flows between grandiosity and intimacy to build a sonic
landscape overflowing with introspection.
With the release of Ache of Victory in 2020 — a five-track EP that The New York Times praised as
"emotive yet elusive, slow but infused with undulating motion, at once earthy and otherworldly” —
Zsela established herself as a singer-songwriter of cavernous depth. Big For You is a quantum leap
for an artist who has taken giant strides as a performer in the years since her inaugural release,
having graced stages like Carnegie Hall and MoMA PS1 in New York and the Natural History
Museums in New York and Los Angeles.
Reflecting on the making of the album’s ten songs, Zsela explains that the initial sketches went
through countless versions before evolving to their final forms. “It was important for me to stay
open in this process, finding the truth of what the songs want to be,” says Zsela. “That meant
breaking them down and building them back up again and again, not being precious and trying to
listen.” By stripping back to the truth of these songs, Zsela arrived at sonic settings that are
striking in their contrast, using negative space to conjure a grander sense of scale. This negative
space also casts a spotlight on Zsela's voice — a confident presence that anchors the lyrical
weight of her compositions.
Dripping with rich textural treatments and amorphous, heart-on-the-sleeve arrangements, the
dynamics and diversity that define Big For You prove Zsela is painting with a wider palette than
ever before. In the artist’s words, the guiding undercurrent across this cycle of songs is heartbreak.
Meditating on the album’s title, Zsela notes, “At the heart, it touches on the causal versus
intentional dance we play between being ‘full of you’ and ‘full for you’ — the complexity and
magnitude of the space we take and fill up for love.”
