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Premiere: Bebe Huxley’s Debut EP Scorpio is Queer Pop Catharsis
The LA artist weaves between masculinity & femininity across eight experimental tracks.
Los Angeles pop artist Bebe Huxley traces her shift from a male-dominated life into radical queer self-acceptance on her debut eight-track EP, Scorpio. Written and produced with Vancouver composer Vincent Parker, the dark electronic effort offers an intimate journey into Huxley's complex psyche, as she embraces the symbiotic relationship of masculinity and femininity, effortlessly weaving between both throughout.
Related | Bebe Huxley Explores Queer Duality in New 'Darkside' Video
The experimental performer's songwriting pulls inspiration from her years doing drag in the underground scenes of LA and San Francisco. Huxley recalls "trying on different personas, especially ones that rejected certain types of femininity that I was bred on" and ultimately discovered what she values most about being a woman: "Strength, humor, access to what breaks my heart and capacity for empathy."
Through performance, Huxley was able to finally relieve herself of "the need to please and prioritize men, and a sense of weakness and internalized dysphoria in my body." This realization helped shape the final direction of Scorpio, which tells the story of Huxley "coming home" to her own body--a body that's neither masculine nor feminine. It's about "never belonging or serving anyone else," she says.
GIF: Erma Fiend
On Scorpio's cheeky highlight "Just Pretend I'm a Man," Huxley embodies an eager-to-please nymphette with lines like "I want you to help me do the dishes and eat me out;" On the EP's title track, Huxley dives into more aggressive synth catharsis, warning her lover, "You better know, I'm a Scorpio;" Through "Idiot Idols," the musician narrates her fantasy of passing through the after life, and on "Mother Muse," she invites her mom Babs to delight in the ecstasy of giving birth.
"Every life has many little deaths that make way for personal rebirth," Huxley says. "I'm a different person in the beginning of the album to where I am in the end. Which of course is the trademark of any Scorpio. We're self destructive, can lash out in the process, but will shed that layer to find new emotional depths. All good stories end in a different place than they began, and I'm obsessed with story."
Listen to the OUT premiere of Bebe Huxley's Scorpio, below.
