070 Shake thrives in extremes. The genre-bending musician—who first rose to fame for her collaborations with Kanye West before delivering a one-two punch of inventive and eclectic albums via 2020’s Modus Vivendi and 2022’s You Can’t Kill Me—might move from mumbled trap to thunderous power rock from one track to the next, or from twinkling ambient soundscapes to theatrical orchestral strings. (Anchoring it all, however, is Shake’s supple, shape-shifting voice, which glides with ease between spoken-word rap and a Rat Pack–worthy croon, or even into full-fledged choral singing made from her own stacked vocals.)
It’s an exploratory spirit that has never been expressed more boldly than on her third album, Petrichor, released last Friday. Charting the rollercoaster ride of falling head over heels in love—in all its pleasure and pain—the record flits from the distorted, Depeche Mode–esque synths of “Elephant” (“Last night got really rowdy, / I think we should talk about it”) to the epic gothic balladry of “Vagabond” (“Fantasize about a home with you, / Let the fire warm my bones with you”) as if she’s picking up her relationship and examining it at every angle. And that’s without mentioning the album’s collaborative efforts, including the power ballad “Into Your Garden,” with a guest slot from former City Girls rapper JT, or perhaps most unexpectedly, a soul-stirring cover of This Mortal Coil’s “Song to the Siren,” with an appearance from Courtney Love.
But Petrichor also showcases Shake’s ability to produce work that seems to exist slightly outside of time and place (even if many will surely be picking through her lyrics for details on her two-plus-year relationship with The Idol and Nosferatu star Lily-Rose Depp). That strange blend of memory and mystery is reflected in the title: The smell of petrichor, Shake explains, is a memory from her childhood in New Jersey, and the scent of wet earth and tarmac after a rainstorm. “It doesn’t have a specific story,” she says. “It’s just a feeling, and when I smell it, it feels timeless. It’s more of a representation of that; of what it is to be timeless. It’s a reflection of the music itself.”
Equally timeless is the visual world Shake has built around the album, from the striking cover—an eerie image of her eye and ear in proximity, seen through a gauzy black-and-white haze—to the listening party she staged in Los Angeles a few weeks back, featuring choreographed ballet, projections, and a live orchestra. In the music video for “Winter Baby / New Jersey Blues”—another example of her willingness to ricochet wildly between genres, it zips from doo-wop to a Beach Boys homage in the space of a single song—Depp appears as Shake’s muse under the twinkling lights of a seedy dive bar, hitting play on the jukebox and twirling her way around the room in a shiny pink mini dress and white lace gloves.
Mostly, though, Shake prefers to stay out of the glare of the spotlight. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2021, she’s found that she’s happiest holed up at her regular recording studio in Malibu, looking out at the ocean, surrounded by nature. “I feel like I can see the world better out here,” she says with a zen smile. Still, she must have something a little more rowdy up her sleeve to celebrate Petrichor’s release? “Me and my buddy Guillermo at 424 might be throwing a rager, so if you’re in LA, you got to come through,” she says, laughing. “Oh, man, I might have to stick the red wine though—just to keep it classy.”
Vogue: Hi Shake. Where am I finding you today?
070 Shake: I’m in Malibu at a studio I work from here, looking out at the water…
That’s where you recorded a lot of Petrichor, right? How are you feeling with the album just about to come out?
Yeah, actually, I finished it in Malibu. I started it in Stockholm and finished in Malibu, which was a real juxtaposition. And I’m feeling good, honestly. I’m not thinking about it too much. I like to just act like it’s not happening, and right now I’m just making more music.
You also staged the ballet show in Los Angeles last week, which looked pretty incredible. How was that experience for you? Was it something you’d visualized from the very beginning of making the record?
It was a vision that I really wanted to see come to life, and we didn’t have much time to rehearse—we pulled it together in one week, tops. But it was a beautiful experience. I’d been thinking about it for a long time, but maybe indirectly, because I watched [Gaspar Noé’s] Climax a lot while I was making it, and I guess the record was inspired by dance. But I didn’t think of actually fusing it with the music until later.
How soon after you finished touring You Can’t Kill Me did you start working on the songs for Petrichor? Are you someone who likes to let one project bleed into the next?
Oh, shit. I don’t even know. [Laughs.] Time doesn’t really compute in my brain. There were a couple of songs I’d already written while touring, but it was really sparked by the relationship I’m in now—that experience inspired me. Musically there’s always a cutoff, as I wrote some songs that weren’t right for it. But I’m always making music. I’m writing music right now, even though the album’s coming out in a few days. It’s a constant thing.
You’ve always been an artist who has defied genre, but it feels especially bold on Petrichor, where you can jump between decades and styles in the space of a single song. Did you set out to create something that would show every aspect of what you can do as a musician, or was it more instinctual?
I definitely don’t have a premeditated story that I want to tell. I let the story tell itself, if that makes sense. I don’t really believe in starting an album with a concept in mind. I think that comes after, once you’ve expressed yourself truthfully, and then you find the story within it. I can’t try to plan what I’m going to go through while I’m writing; it has to just happen. That’s pretty much how it goes for me. I never want to feel boxed into anything at all.
Petrichor is described in the press materials as a gothic epic, and you’ve already mentioned that you drew on cinema for inspiration. What were some of the films that informed it most strongly?
I was watching Persona a lot. That’s a movie that was often on the screen while I was making it. And The Color of Pomegranates as well, and Climax, which I already mentioned. I was kind of just keeping those three on loop, honestly. I think I’ve seen Persona now like 15 times without the sound. As soon as I go into the studio, I put it on the screen, and then I work to it.
Would you ever want to write a film score?
Oh, yeah. That’s one of my biggest dreams. I’d be so proud to get the opportunity to score a film. A lot of what I write gets stripped back because I want to meet the listener halfway. Sometimes I’ll have a 10-minute intro, and it’s just the most beautiful instrumentation you’ve heard. But then I have to get back to reality and be like, All right, I need to cut this down to two minutes so that it’s intelligible and works as part of the album. But I’m also working on a classical piece with my buddy Johan Lenox, who’s a composer, so that I can be completely free in that—so I can make those 15-minute songs that I want to make.
Are there other creative mediums that you pull from, or that feed you creatively?
I’m not a good painter, but I do like to paint sometimes, and I like to watch people paint. Art is a major driving force for me. But it’s really just observing the world in general, that’s where I get most of my inspiration—even just going to breakfast and studying the people around me. That’s why I came out to Malibu as well, just being able to be in this openness and to observe nature a little more. I’m from the East Coast, and I felt like I could see the world better out here.
You’ve mentioned before that you need to detach yourself from the world sometimes to create, and Los Angeles feels like a better place than New York to exist in your own little bubble for as long as you need to at times.
Exactly. If I don’t want to see people, I can accomplish that very easily out here. And if I do want to, it’ll be intentional. Plus, I just love the fact that I can see all these landscapes. I grew up in the city, being from Jersey, and I don’t like how the buildings break up my line of vision. I’ve been blessed with this space in Malibu that I like to work out of, and it’s just the most beautiful landscape. I drive a lot up north. I go to Yosemite. I’ll go to Joshua Tree. I’ll go to the dunes out here; I don’t mind driving. A couple of months ago, me and my girlfriend drove to Big Sur, and it took us eight hours, and I was just going nonstop. It’s a good time.
You touched on the fact that this album is rooted in your current relationship with Lily-Rose, and it definitely feels like it encompasses every aspect of being in love, from the highs to the more turbulent moments.
Because that’s just the truth of love. In my experience of love, it can’t exist without pain. And I think that’s what a lot of it is too: embracing the pain that you can only get from love. It’s a particular kind of pain. Being a human is not easy. We’re born from pain—it’s the first thing we know, the screams of being born. It feels the same with love as well. You have to go through the wringer a little bit to figure out your dance. But yeah, I was just embracing the beauty and embracing the pain because that’s the yin and the yang of love, in my experience.
As someone who is obviously very private but is also dealing with a higher level of public interest in that romance, how do you go about preserving the intimate parts of your relationship while channeling them into your art? How do you negotiate that balance?
To be honest, I’m just being genuine. I’m inspired by that romance, and it’s my truth. And I think, even if there might be a mystery in my public expression, there’s a truth that I hold within my art, because I don’t think that you have to know me in any other way. The people that know me in real life, my family and friends know me in that way, but I don’t think that the world has to know me in any other way besides my artistic expression. And what’s going on in my personal life bleeds into the art naturally. I have a muse, and it bleeds into the art, and that’s the only place I really feel I have to let people in—just through the art.
Was it an obvious decision to have Lily-Rose in the “Winter Baby / New Jersey Blues” video?
Well, I mean, I wouldn’t want to do that with any other girl. I wouldn’t be able to. It just wouldn’t feel as good. And she’s just incredible. She’s so inspiring and beautiful. We’re both artists in different ways, and it just made sense.
Tell me a little more about what you were channeling on the fashion front throughout the visuals for Petrichor. Were there any specific references you were pulling from there?
I was feeling very inspired by the 1940s and the ’50s—there’s always a part of me that loves getting dressed up, and I was looking to the pinstripe suits. Also, I’m really into denim at the moment. I’ve been wearing denim all year. I think it’s become my comfort zone: a denim jacket with jeans. Simple and classic.
I know that you’ve spoken about making music as a kind of medicine for you—did that hold true for Petrichor as well?
Well, I think it’s given me a chance to release a lot of chaos that I’ve had going on within me, and it’s therapy. It’s given me a lot of peace, definitely, and focus—and just a lot of confidence in where I can go after this. Everything I create feels like it’s paving the way for something new.
And what do you hope it can give your fans?
I just want it to be something that people can rely on. If you’re feeling something intensely, and you don’t have anywhere to go, you can come to this music, and it will be there for you. All artists wish for their music to be healing, I think, and that’s the basis of everything for me—that it can make someone feel better and less alone.
