When you try to rebel against things that are meant to be, the universe will find a way of sending things right back at you—at least that was Harriette’s teenage experience. “My parents always said I should do music, but I hate authority,” she laughs. Growing up in Texas as a tall blonde with a guitar and a penchant for twang, Harriette just refused to fall into a stereotype—even if she was passionate about the craft and writing songs for herself. Instead of studying music, Harriette headed off to New York City for Parsons School of Design. But when the COVID pandemic sent her back home and a snippet of music she offhandedly posted to TikTok went viral, she figured it was time to accept that a life in music was inevitable. Harriette’s debut EP, I Heart the Internet (due April 27, via AWAL), exemplifies that beguiling, lowslung ease and insistent sense of self, witty modernist barbs and open-hearted confessions swimming through honeyed, country-adjacent indie pop.
“I didn’t think country was my brand, but then anytime people heard me play they’d tell me it was,” Harriette smiles, the Texas orbit retaining a pull even now that she’s moved back to Brooklyn. Growing up equally obsessed with the Dixie Chicks and Sheryl Crow as Taylor Swift and Hillary Duff, she explains, the place where Southern warmth meets pop guile has always been a sweet spot. Harriette replicates that duality perfectly on “Fucking Married”, a track where she processes the news that her teenage sweetheart got married just a few years after their high school graduation. “I wish you the best, but that sounds like shit/ And I’m so glad that I’m not it/ Cause I’m so cute, I’m twenty-two/ And I’ve got so much left to do,” she sings, chased by pitch-perfect wordless harmonies and twanging guitar.
After gaining a surprise fanbase and acclaim for her TikTok post of a breakup song called “at least i’m pretty” in 2021, Harriette set to work exploring where music could take her. “At first I was like, “I guess I’ll just be a TikToker,’” she says. The Texan dropped out of the college she’d enrolled in (“I was failing anyways,” she smirks), and began to post more music and make connections with other musicians and producers. Eventually she connected with Toronto-based producer Sam Jackson Willows, and the two quickly made plans to record a few tracks. “I was so glad to work with someone that was as excited about my music as I was so that I could just ask stupid questions, try random ideas, and just speak my mind,” Harriette says. “It was a very trusting, open space.”
That environment clearly pays off on I Heart the Internet, a set of songs fueled by personal experience and completely natural in their disposition; Harriette’s best lines feel simultaneously whip-smart in their writing and as though you’re listening to a friend explain their latest personal drama. The acoustic-strummed “I Heart the Internet” hits that mark, a Clairo-via-Nashville tune that builds phone dialing into its musical structure. “If I knew how to make my bed, I wouldn’t sleep so close to the edge,” Harriette drips, her cotton candy vocals floating over a rubber band bass and a wash of crystalline slide guitar. The track’s exploration of presenting life one way and living it another, of the gap between the internet self and reality, resonates especially deeply after years of extended pandemic web-based interaction. “That song feels like the heart of the project, this self-reflection about this situation we were all in,” Harriette says. “It’s a good perspective on my age, my self, what life was like in that moment.”
Elsewhere, “Goodbye Texas” embraces Western dancefloor glow over which Harriette ironically examines her lack of place in her home state—a concern that hit close to home after the political contests of the last few years drove friends and families apart. “Breaking up with Texas didn’t seem to be so reckless/ But when you don’t own a gun it’s a lot less fun,” she sighs, before apologizing to George Strait and Tanya Tucker and saying goodbye to yellow roses. The rippling “bc I Love You”, meanwhile, balances airy synths and chugging electric guitar with a postmortem examination of a failed relationship.
“Growing up, I felt like I needed to go along with the wave, but rebelling and moving away made me question my motivation,” Harriette says. “And what I realized was that, since I was a kid, whenever I felt overly emotional or faced any change, I just needed to sit alone with my guitar. I realized I didn’t need to rebel, to turn my nose up without thinking. Writing these songs, I learned who I was.” One listen to the record, and it’s immediately clear who Harriette is and the depths of emotion and cunning songwriting she has to offer. As a debut album, I Heart the Internet offers listeners a conversation with a new friend, one full of razor wit and tenderness, an intimacy and sense of home even as the rest of the world changes and pulls away.
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