TL;DR:


• Listen to "Old Intro" + "Skyline Arms-Reach Out" / pre-order →
• Palimpsesa out via Topshelf Records on July 30th, 2025 (digital, cassette)
• Recommended if you like: Vagabon, King Krule, Benét, McKinley Dixon, Orion Sun, Anjimile, Olive Klug, Lauryn Hill, Tracy Chapman, mountain-moving folk, rap, and soul

~Reintroducing~, Mal Devisa. The songwriting, liberation, and poetry project of the multifarious artist Deja Carr. At age 12, Carr began playing music when she and a group of friends started a band called Who'da Funk It? After five years of performing, writing, and recording, Carr began to learn bass as she compiled scraps of her forgotten songs. Based in Amherst, Massachusetts, the solo project Mal Devisa was soon born out of the slanted basement walls and busted dusty kick drums.

p: POND Creative

Starting in 2014 and breaking through with 2016's critically acclaimed Kiid, Mal Devisa's work spans a self-made spectrum of sound from gravitic, soulful rock to soliloquy to unabashed hip-hop. Although known for her unmistakable, smouldering voice and loop-based, bass-forward compositions, Carr's talents also extend to reaches of poetry and production, paralleled by aspirations to start both a youth foundation and Afrobeat Orchestra.

"Deja Carr's voice is a force of gravity, an instrument of rare range and seemingly limitless capacity for empathy. When she howls, her vocals clip into the red, and her rapping jolts you straight awake." -Pitchfork

The sound on her new anthology album Palimpsesa (a play on the word "Palimpsest" - a piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for new text) is a maelstrom of genre-defiant magic that spans jazz, folk, hip-hop, and experimental forms. Carr's lyrics are cleverly verbose, their delivery like lightning whispering into the haunting DIY spaces where Mal Devisa cut her teeth. Such boundless inspiration and style are central facets of Mal Devisa's work, whose sonically and narratively unrestrained passages teem with empathy and liberatory visions for a better world.

"Deja Carr's depth, musical range, and innate understanding of how to make her music spotlight itself help make her one of the most compelling new singer-songwriters in recent memory." -The FADER

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Palimpsesa is available on cassette and digitally everywhere great music can be purchased on July 30, 2025.
listen to lead singles "Old Intro" + "Skyline Arms-Reach Out" →
Recommended if you like: Vagabon, King Krule, Benét, McKinley Dixon, Orion Sun, Anjimile, Olive Klug, Lauryn Hill, Tracy Chapman, mountain-moving folk, rap, and soul
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Palimpsesa features some of Mal Devisa's earlier songs plus a whole fresh batch of previously unreleased material, newly mixed and fully remastered. Lead singles "Old Intro" and "Skyline Arms-Reach Out" flip between two distinct sides of the Mal Devisa coin, with the former highlighting Carr's effortless flow over a scrappy, boom-bap rap beat and the latter showcasing her sky soaring voice weaved in beautifully with art-pop atmospherics. It's a completely stunning return.

Deja Carr writes this about both songs and what they mean to her:

"I owe the song "Old Intro" to the refusal to be taken seriously. When I was young I knew music was what I wanted to do but in the same breath I was kind of unruly in a funny way. I recorded this song in an era where I was listening to a lot of artists like Odd Future, Bajka, and Arts the Beatdoctor. To this day all of these artists still influence me in different ways. I'm really honest about my songs in general. The lyrics are teenagery and weird but it was a reflection of who I was at the time. This song teaches me the importance of doing your thing with your friends. And having it be nothing but that."

On "Skyline Arms-Reach Out" I shifted the lyrics and meaning to honor Blackness in all of its forms. I had this existential moment where I felt like I needed a song about Black joy and love and resilience. The song feels rich in emotion, exactly how I felt in the moment."

Palimpsea tracklist

SIDE A:

1. You Are My Sunshine
2. Next Stop
3. Icarus - Breakthrough
4. Vicious Nonbeliever (ft. God's Wisdom)
5. New Eardrums (prod. by Marco)
6. Dominatrix

1. Old Intro
2. Never See Me Do It
3. Crowd Pleaser
4. The Room is Spinning
5. Contracts
6. Skyline Arms-Reach Out

1. Fire
2. You Are All That You Need
3. To Be Unwilling
4. I Could Tell
5. The Skies
6. Dangerous
7. If You Are Waiting
8. Shomberg Isn't the Place
9. Slept On
10. Rum

1. O Ivory
2. Sunrise (prod. by Marco)
3. My Potential
4. You Go to My Head
5. Forest
6. Raw as the Hands of the Sun
7. Forget That I

Follow Mal Devisa:
instagram | spotify

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