Aviva

The best pop music is a deep dive into contrasts: joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, midnight and morning. But sleight of hand is essential, so that those depths are masked by a deceptively sparkling surface. That duality is what makes pop timeless, beguiling. And it’s the very essence of CARYS’s hotly anticipated major label debut EP, To Anyone Like Me. CARYS’s music is already a study in juxtapositions. Her smash single “Princesses Don’t Cry” racked up an astonishing 71 million-plus spins fuelled by an incredible viral run of user generated content on TikTok, granting the singer/songwriter worldwide and very mainstream exposure for a song boldly shattering stale feminine myths about internalizing pain and bravely smiling through tears. Yet ask CARYS — a.k.a. Aviva Mongillo to sum up the dazzling, exquisitely produced, and multilayered TALM in an elevator pitch, and she doesn’t miss a beat. “It sounds like candy,” she says, “and it feels like love.” “When I was writing this EP, it felt like it was coming from a positive and loving place,” CARYS says. “But listening to it after the fact, I see how much of it reflects my need for validation. When I hear the EP now, I hear sadness in the songs.” “I hope this EP can create a community in my fanbase,” CARYS says when asked her highest hopes for TALM. “Lots of people know ‘Princesses Don't Cry’ but don’t know the rest of my music. It would be great if people could see the whole me.”