Sparklmami Releases New Jazz Funk Single ‘si’
The Chicago artist worked with longtime collaborators Eddie Burns and William Corduroy on the track.
Sparklmami has released “si,” a new single that follows her debut album, in this body. The Chicago artist draws on jazz funk, synthesizers, and 1980s electric piano sounds for a song about recognizing the qualities she admires in a crush within herself. Released through Verve Records / slowplay, the track combines singing with spoken word interludes as it explores the distance between romantic fantasy and reality.
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Sparklmami produced the song alongside longtime friends and collaborators Eddie Burns, who plays drums, and William Corduroy, who plays bass. Its wordplay connects attraction with self-recognition. “I was visualizing ‘shiny toy syndrome’ when I was making the song,” Sparklmami says. “How the things we often like in a crush are the parts we can’t see (si) in ourselves.”
Released in June, in this body revisits childhood memories from an adult perspective, with individual songs depicting moments from Sparklmami’s life. Tracks including “no te vayas” and “quisiera” reflect the music she grew up around, from 1970s Brazilian jazz to Mexican boleros. Improvisation shaped the recording process, with Sparklmami and her band developing compositions together. Burns and Corduroy served as executive producers, while Josh Jessen contributed keys and synthesizers, Kenneth Leftridge Jr. played saxophone, and Alec Trickett played percussion.
The album also connects with Sparklmami’s visual art practice. Before making music, she earned a BFA at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she explored memory and identity through dioramas of her childhood home and green screen recreations of telenovelas she watched growing up. She has continued that work through music videos and visualizers she directs and produces alongside collaborator Steven A. Garcia, extending the album’s exploration of memory into its accompanying imagery.
The single follows a European tour that included trio performances in Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam. Sparklmami closed the run at the COLORS: Tones of London showcase in September, appearing alongside Florence Road and M Huncho. She is scheduled to perform at BRIC JazzFest in New York on October 16.
