The Shoe – I’m Okay

Actress Jena Malone's team-up with Brooklyn alt-composer Lem Jay Ignacio as The Shoe has produced a beautiful little project, I’m Okay....
The Shoe : I'm Okay
7.8 Community
2014 

The Shoe : I'm OkayMusic is littered with actors & actresses who’ve delved into it, somehow particularly indie music, perhaps because indie is an artistic outlet away from studio heads and network honchos, and its lower cost lets fame pay the bills (and get the initial attention). Jena Malone might not be as famous as New Girl Zooey Deschanel (though she did steal the most recent Hunger Games movie – and was Donnie Darko’s girlfriend!) – nor she did recruit someone as musically well known as M. Ward – but her team-up with Brooklyn alt-composer Lem Jay Ignacio as The Shoe has produced a beautiful little project, I’m Okay.

Like Deschanel & Ward, a.k.a. She & Him (QRO live review), The Shoe’s focus is on Malone’s voice, which is intimate and touching. There is also less instrumentation on I’m Okay, making Malone stand out even more, but Ignacio’s keys turn it towards the almost indietronic, if sweet and sad. It is all encapsulated a bit too well in the title track/opener, which sees Malone do a charming ramble (describing making the song for someone as a replacement for calling or texting like a teenager). The other pieces often feel like not-quite-as-good “I’m Okay”s, though there are a few stronger ventures elsewhere: “His Shirt Grew” ups the effects to feel like being in a larger, empty house, “Broken Hearted Love Song” is a country girl wandering in and out of bed, and “I Guess This Is My Man” is a clever & memorable indietronic number from the girl on the side.

The Shoe won’t get the attention this year of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 or the first feature film adaption of a Thomas Pynchon work, Inherent Vice (which Malone is to appear in, Oscar-baited to air in select cities in late December), but is a pretty release that is more than just Okay.

The Shoe – I'm Okay

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