Glory Daze is the artistic vision of LA born artist Lea Beiley and together with childhood friend and producer J. Roosevelt she has created Subtract & Divide, a song about trying to keep your head above water in the rising tides of an emotional break-up.
The thick bass and cloying melodies of Subtract & Divide recall that queasy and complicated feeling of a love that has somehow broken down... It’s neither one emotion nor another - loss and fondness and heartbreak and desperation and hope and desire all compete, leaving you laughing one moment and distraught the next. You can hear it all here, in Beiley’s words and voice. The way she says “And I hear our last conversation in the back of my mind, all of the time” and later “You’re stuck in my head like a song on repeat”, really conveys that feeling of being ground down to dust by another person’s sudden absence.
Describing the meaning behind the song, Beiley said:
“It’s a song about wading through the aftermath of a break up, and grappling with the complex mix of nostalgia and grief that accompanies heartbreak. Especially when a relationship ends badly, I think we all to some extent end up being haunted by our memories of the good moments and wondering what parts of our experience with that person were real.”
The track is paired with a video that portrays something akin to the feeling of being pulled around emotionally when things break down, dancer Carlena’s movements jerky and forceful, as though she isn’t fully in control. Both the track and video are a little bit beautiful, despite their clear sadness.