LPs feature Limited Edition Clear Coke Bottle vinyl
“I’ve always felt pulled in a lot of directions,” says Jobi Riccio. “It feels like I exist in all these different worlds, and I can feel each of them tugging at different parts of me.”
It makes perfect sense, then, that Riccio’s stunning debut would be called Whiplash. Written over the course of several formative and tumultuous years, the collection is a revelatory coming-of-age story from a writer torn between east and west, intimacy and independence, and her past and future. The Colorado native grapples directly with her queerness for the first time here, baring her truest self with raw candor, and she explores her desire for connection and belonging with similar honesty, searching for a place to call home against the backdrop of an ever-evolving identity.
“When I was writing these songs, I kept coming back to this image of someone slamming on the breaks in a car crash and this idea of emotional whiplash,” she explains. “That rush of stress and adrenaline felt similar to what I was experiencing as I emotionally processed one big life change after another.”
Sonically, Riccio’s music exists between worlds, as well, drawing on both classic country craftsmanship and modern indie production to forge a lush, expansive sound that feels traditional and experimental all at once. Add it all up and you’ve got an album that embraces its multitudes, a profoundly vulnerable work delivered by an artist navigating the complicated transition into adulthood with remarkable grace and maturity.
