“My Best Friend Is My Therapist” by Erica Manzoli

Lockdown was tough on all of us, not least because it left us all with the same issues yet struggling to find ways to communicate them all. It was the kind of time where, quite realistically, your best friend could be your therapist. That’s exactly the situation that songwriter Erica Manzoli intends to capture in her new tune, coincidentally titled “My Best Friend is My Therapist”.

Explaining the intent behind the tune, she says, “I wrote this song in quite a difficult stage of my life. Lockdown had just hit, I had lost all contact with my friends and the only person I was speaking to on a regular basis was my therapist via zoom. It explores the struggles of the digital world and how connecting virtually can disconnect you from reality. The chorus sings ‘I wanna be awake / Stuck in this hologram’ so I thought it was fun to play with the idea of a hologram for this video and accompany myself using a projector. The digital version of ourselves may show the side we want to portray but they’re often fragile and people can often see straight through it, so I thought it would be cool to choose a semi-translucent fabric for the image of me to be projected on, to reflect that.”

The song has been accompanied by a new music video, a minimalist visualisation that helps to emphasise the raw emotions that Manzoli, who is consistently on camera, is expressing. Accompanied, almost hauntingly, by a projection of herself playing air piano, the song builds to its emotional and cathartic conclusion with a directness that seems designed to repeal the distancing effect of isolation that Manzoli describes. In doing so, she’s building the connection through music that she was missing beforehand.

She’s set to commemorate the success of this release with a London headlining show at The Waiting Room on 5th May, for which tickets will go sale on Friday from here.