BEST NEW INDIE: ASHE - USED TO IT (STRIPPED)

Here at We Are: The Guard, I am celebrating the beginning of festival season. But if the heat has made you wish for Autumn to come sooner, the light, stripped-down version of "Used To It" by the songstress named Ashe is surely the ticket to more comfortable weather. 

ASHE - USED TO IT (STRIPPED)

With Comic Con right around the corner, it is only fitting that San Diego-based Ashlyn Willson presented ocean side sensibilities to the rest of the world. "Used To It," the stripped version, is an entirely acoustic interpretation of the track. Not that the original incarnation was loud and boisterous, anyways. Surely, this song grabs the listeners by the lapels and takes them to a world of piano cafes and bookstores with poetry slam Saturdays. As much as I enjoy going to rock shows in dingy venues, Ashe’s vocal and piano composition reminds me how important jazz cafes has been in culturing my adult self.

There are times you want a story to be told through simple dialog with piano backing. This is a story of trying to recapture the dynamics between a couple when the relationship has just reached a point of routine. How do lovers reignite the spark when they have been together for so long? Answering this question might be the most difficult part of Used To It. The rest of it is pretty simple. Just a girl singing a song playing the piano.