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Brooklyn-based duo Daisy the Great has fairly casual beginnings: They were acting students together at NYU, NYC's hotbed for up-and-coming talent. Mina Walker and Kelley Nicole Dugan, now both 24, were tasked with writing something comedic for a final project. The joke is, they ended writing themselves into a duo with 7-piece band. Now that's method acting.
Almost exactly a full year after the release of its EP, Daisy The Great will be releasing its album, titled I’m Not Getting Any Taller, on Friday, January 18. Ahead of the album, they've released two videos — one for "Famous," which arrived last week, and one for "Dips," which you can watch below exclusively on Refinery29.
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The album is "mostly about the time you have and what to do it with and who to spend it with," says Walker, who grew up in New Orleans. (Disclosure: Walker and I attended elementary and middle school together.) "Dips," then, hones in on having have just a little amount of time. What do you do with a relationship that didn't last but also didn't wreck you?
"I keep kissing the sweet in your lips/the salt at your hips/'cause you're taking dips in the water," the duo sings in harmony. Daisy The Great's sound is like Regina Spektor and The Moldy Peaches did a duet against a swelling, rousing orchestra.
"The song...is about reminiscence on a kind of relationship that's very short-lived and fleeting, but also very romantic and almost hyperbolic," Walker adds. The video stars Brigette Lundy-Paine, star of Netflix's Atypical, dancing around a dimly lit room with a coat instead of an actual partner. She's reimagining a relationship, perhaps rebuilding something that wasn't there in the first place. In the absence of a long-term romance, the imagination can add some sumptuous flourishes.
Says NYC native Dugan, "Brigette's such a good actor, we were like, 'Let's just have you have a full relationship with this coat.' And she created it." The duo met Lundy-Paine at NYU.
The band itself is cautiously straddling the line between humility and pride: Even the name is ironic. Daisies are "vulnerable," Dugan points out, while greatness is not. Their music often begins tentative, building into something more aggressive. They're joining a larger chorus of female pop musicians that are leaning into anarchy and melancholia. Daisy's first single, "The Record Player Song" begins with just a few snaps and a statement: "I've got a record player that was made in 2014." Moments into the song, the duo lays it all on the table, singing, "Sometimes, I think all I'm ever doing is trying to convince myself I'm alive." Oh, shit.
Moving forward, the duo will be hosting a release party at Baby's All Right on January 26. The full album will be available Friday on Spotify. Watch the full video for "Dips," below.