charlø’s “numb” delicately broaches the body’s uncertain response to trauma

When charlø first started posting songs over Instagram, it was only as a distraction from her day job. Back then she was Charlotte Reed, working in commercial real estate and feeling adrift, finding solace in the music of Billie Eilish and quietly putting out her own soundbites every now and then. Unassuming though her posts were, they wound up catching the attention of musical entrepreneur Tyler Henry, who begged her to move to Los Angeles and write with him in 2021. But just as she talked herself into it, plans were dramatically stalledwhen she broke her back in a freak skiing accident.

Out of nowhere, she found herself confronted with three months of forced downtime. YouTube beckoned, but rather than getting lost down its wormholes, she started watching tutorials to grasp the fundamentals of music production. By the time her convalescence ended, she had taken up several instruments and played with enough music to carve out her own sound. Further formative to her songwriting, she also quit her job, finally free to settle in LA. Here, she flung herself into collaborating with artists including Grandson and Josh Rubin.

Debut single "numb" marks her first solo release, and explores the brain's struggle to come to terms with trauma. Her soft, hesitant vocal hovers over ghostly synths, while the melody vacillates in a way that recalls the untrustworthy, fluctuating nature of memory. “”numb” was written about a vivid memory of a traumatic event that only recently came rushing back to me," charlø says of the track.

"I have been reeling trying to figure out if this thing actually happened or not ever since. On one hand, if I let myself believe it was true, I think I'd break down. So I've remained in this sort of undecided state of numbness towards the memory," she continues. "Since it was a memory of something that happened so long ago, I realized I can kind of choose how I want to relate to it moving forward.”

This decisive spirit is something she's had to embrace to feel comfortable releasing her own music altogether. As a songwriter, charlø is used to being anonymous, her online presence low-key to the point of elusivity. It's obvious that in the past she has preferred to stay in the background and help others find the words to recount their experiences. But "numb" may be about to change that.

“My ultimate goal is to write songs and produce for other artists, but I still end up writing a lot of songs that are so personal to me that I want to share," she explains. "Since moving to L.A., I feel like I've been falling forward into each new opportunity, and at some point, I just thought maybe I can do both, why not?"

In a parallel life, maybe there's another Charlotte Reed still flogging office space to business clients; charlø, however, has decisively moved on from the daily grind. Still, her songwriting remains committed to tackling the mundanities and shadows of regular everyday life: a chance for her to comb the depths of her mind for clues, and confront unsettling truths.