Today, Siichaq — the project of the Atlanta-based musician Kennie Mason — share’s her newest, dreamiest single to date, “Life’s A Mess,” a cut and dry, leering yearning to be a perfect person. The track’s on the tail end of the forthcoming album CATCHER, out August 8. Listen to “Life’s A Mess” here, and presave CATCHER here.

“Life’s A Mess” is something of a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel as far as this album goes. While the subject matter is inherently dark, the string arrangement from Annie Leeth (Faye Webster’s violinist) quite literally lift it up off of the ground. Mason says, “Hearing the song with those parts on it for the first time gave me chills from head to toe, and I’ll vividly remember that moment forever.” Matching that, there’s a hopefulness in Mason’s voice, at odds with the sentiment she’s spilling out; that hopefulness is a blade, ever-sharpening, to lance her own engrained self-doubt.

Of “Life’s A Mess,” Siichaq says, “I am a control freak, and I feel a constant level of stress about the fact that I cannot control how I am perceived – ’I’ being my physical appearance, my art, my words. This song expresses my desire to shrink away from the world so as to avoid observation and therefore prevent being seen as flawed or unworthy. I think many people struggle with the same need to be good enough, to be perceived as perfect. Nobody, despite their best efforts, is perfect. Writing this song was the first step to accepting that, and it was cathartic to admit it out loud.”

Previous single “Project 3” creates a grungy, deep, droning, murky sonic world that proved to be perfect for introducing such an introspective, autobiographical album in CATCHER. It’s a sluggish symphony of minimalist shoegaze and slacker rock, where frayed feedback floats in a pool of melancholy. It brings to mind The Microphones blown out despondency and julie’s gothy bluntness. Across CATCHER, aside from teh lush strings you hear today, you get interludes of noise rock (“Horse & The Heretic”), which sit comfortably next to golden two-tone harmonies sung about the pleasures of being alone (“A Couple Bad People”); groovy pop melodies (“Cannibal”) and bare bones banjo (“World Equestrian Center”).

There are glimpses of gloom and darkness that stem from deep within Mason”s psyche; things you’d never pick up on if you meet her in person. Cheery, chipper, a little bit flitting not unlike a hummingbird searching for sugar, Mason moves through the world as a beacon of positivity and empathy in spite of what they carry.

Across CATCHER, Mason tapped into her flourishing musical community: Rand Kelly (The Slaps), Maggie Geeslin, Ben Wulkan, Connor Dowd, and Matteo Delurgio (all of Lunar Vacation), Annie Leeth (Faye Webster), and Evan Dangerfield (Finn Wolfhard). Mason’s organic honesty finds a home and flourishes in this music, her style in sound brought to life by a web of wildly talented artists, yet rooted wholeheartedly in its own dreamy world.

You might be sick of indie rock being deemed “honest,” or “raw;” but let the album to come cleanse you of that tiresome note. There is nothing contrived here – just a nearly-flippant display of things that needed to be written down and orchestrated. The Cliff Notes: Mason grew up in South Florida as the only native person, or even person of color, to note. At twelve years old, she was placed in a correctional wilderness program after a hired consultant warned her parents that it was the only way to keep her around long term. For six or so weeks, she fended for herself in the forest in the rain, cold, and darkness. After that, Mason always found herself making friends with older folks; her soul much older than her physical being, which had always placed her at odds in her environment, anyway. Just a few years ago, around the age of 20, a friend lent her a copy of Catcher in the Rye, which lent a hand in the titling of the album.