Amber Lewis - Lips & Teeth (2022)

Day Off Recordings is excited to announce the March 11 release of Lips & Teeth, the debut full-length from Brooklyn-based singer, songwriter and painter Amber Lewis. The first single “Island TIme” is out there and a video for the single “Honey Days” featuring Lewis’s original watercolor paintings come-to-life is out now also.

Raised north of NYC (“there were lots of trees” says Amber), Lewis describes Lips & Teeth as a time-capsule of her first years of independence, and speaks to her growth in that time, explaining “There’s equal focus on my personal relationships and my moments of solitude, of which there are many. This kind of touches on Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, with young adulthood supposedly having the theme of intimacy versus isolation”.

The songs on Lips & Teeth are based in folk, built upon fingerpicked acoustic and electric guitar, with observational-yet-impressionistic lyrics sung in Lewis’ confident, casual and beautiful voice. Accompanied but never overburdened by percussion, vocal harmonies and other melodic textures, Lips & Teeth is mellow, smooth and pretty, yet far too interesting and textured to sit in the background.

“Honey Days” is a song about the monotony of days at home in relative isolation. The question, “Where will all this water go?” sets the tone for the album, and plays out throughout. Love – both platonic and otherwise – is another point of contention within the music, as Lewis wonders where all of the love she has to offer will end up, and if that love is warranted. A video for “Honey Days” features Amber’s lush, watercolor paintings

Lips & Teeth was largely recorded in collaboration with Lewis’ friend Jacob Aviner at his home studio: “In three or four days I sang and played the guitar, petted his cats, and we chatted. It was pleasant.” says Lewis.

Amber Lewis is a singer-songwriter, painter, and rising social worker living in Brooklyn. A poet at heart, Lewis is influenced by Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, and Mitski, and uses song as a form of intimate storytelling. Amber has been performing since she was a child, and has appeared at Rockwood Music Hall, The Bowery Electric, City Winery, The Bitter End, and Symphony Space.