Exploring the Musical Manual on How to Catch a Falling Knife
How does one catch a falling knife? Split seconds define the descent of the blade and the choice you make in reaching your hand out to test fate or stepping away from the likely laceration, and Gigi Perez’s brand new EP explores each painstaking second in vivid detail. With eight soul-exposing tracks totalling a quick thirty-five minutes, Gigi questions the possibilities of grasping the blade that will clearly hurt her with vulnerable swiftness.
How To Catch A Falling Knife begins with brand new track “Kill For You,” an anthemic burst of yearning and anguish that drops listeners directly into her struggle in lost connections. The accompanying music video finds Gigi living with the corpses of people she can’t let go of, personifying the mania and heartbreak that comes with loss in a poignant start to the EP. The haunting fury of “Kill For You” is a mainstay on the full project as Perez fights through the various stages of grief she has struggled with during moments of heartbreak and betrayal, most notably coming in hot the worst wishes possible towards an abusive ex in with “Karma.”
Gigi especially shines in her ballads, specifically exploding into powerful and reverent looks into the flaws of a former relationship in “Glue” and “When She Smiles.” The EP closes with arguably her most vulnerable song about this failed relationship titled “Sally.” Wrapped up in the memories and desire for separation, “Sally” is a direct plea to Gigi’s all-consuming first love to stay in the past, no matter how much Perez misses her smile.
How To Catch A Falling Knife epitomizes a multitude of complexities for Gigi’s first full project. Wading through the riptides of love, loss, grief, and personal strife, Perez’s journey through the eight tracks of the EP are relatable and raw as the question of how to catch a falling knife remains unanswered. As she ponders what has gone wrong in key moments of life and how to stop the bleeding these cuts have caused, however, Gigi has written a clear how-to manual for listeners to cling to.
So, how do you catch a falling knife? According to Gigi, you catch a falling knife aware of both the expectation to get cut and the acceptance of the coming bloodshed. You catch a falling knife because you don’t feel you can do anything else. You catch a falling knife with caution and reckless abandon, with anger for the past and hope for the future, with love for naivete and resentment for knowledge – all at the same time.
