Temporary album cover photo by Eli Durst.
Quicksand (Official Music Video) was created in collaboration with Charlie Hyman.
Everything is Temporary (Official Music Video) was created in collaboration with Joy Scanlon.
Monsoon (Official Music Video) was created in collaboration with Ana Treviño.
Photo: Eli Durst
Pam Reyes is an independent singer-songwriter based in Austin, Texas by way of Queens, New York. Pam writes songs to make sense of the world around her and to understand her many identities. As a first-generation immigrant, recently naturalized American citizen, queer woman—and more simply, as a human with feelings—Pam explores themes of love, loss, and politics. Her performances are an exercise in collective vulnerability. Her frank, bordering on dark, songwriting meets her stirring voice in a coupling that oscillates between dissonance and consonance.
Reyes’ forthcoming album, Temporary, will be out on all digital platforms on August 3, 2024. In Temporary, Reyes reflects on experiences of transience and diaspora throughout her life– moving to Austin at a height of the COVID pandemic, her immigration from the Philippines to the United States, and what it means to arrive in (and depart from) a place. “In writing Temporary, I was thinking about the things that anchor us, and the space created when we lose those anchors.” Many of the album’s visuals, from music videos to handmade merch, feature portals, spirals, and holes. “These spaces of void as a result of impermanence are really spaces of creation.”
Temporary was written from 2020-2023, Reyes’ first years in Austin after moving from her home of Queens, New York. The album was recorded May-August 2023 in the artist’s home studio. It was produced by Pam Reyes and her multi-instrumentalist collaborator Donato Loia, mixed by Gabo Lugo, and mastered by Jett Galindo. Temporary features a host of collaborations with other Austin-based musicians: studio sessions with cellist Henna Chou, bassist Anna Connolly, drummer Maurice Barrett, harpist and pianist Mitch Stevens; single and album covers by photographer Eli Durst; music videos by artists Ana Treviño, Charlie Hyman, and Joy Scanlon; and a line of upcycled, handmade merch in collaboration with visual artist Neal Flynn.
Reyes independently released her self-titled debut album of songs written and recorded in her Queens bedroom in 2015. In October 2018, she released the single and music video, “Dear Dreamer,” exploring her own family’s migration to America while standing in solidarity with young immigrants threatened by America’s immigration policies. Reyes is a 2019 recipient of Queens Arts Fund’s New Works Grant which partially funded her release of the single and music video, “New Name” in October 2019.
Booking inquiries: pamreyesmusic@gmail.com