Chrissi‘s recent single ‘Love Me In Chapters’ found its audience on TikTok, with snippets of the track floating across the app this summer. The song, a deeply emotional hammerblow led by the Essex-based singer’s vulnerable vocals, always felt like it had more to it than bite-sized virality, though.
This promise is proven on the track’s collaborative sequel, ‘Love Me In Chapters II’, which welcomes a new verse from Rachel Chinouriri. “Rachel reached out, which was insane considering how much her music has been the soundtrack to my life over the past few years. She said she loved the song and would be up for featuring on it,” Chrissi recently said in a press release – and the mutual admiration and chemistry between the pair is immediately evident on this track.
On Chinouriri’s verse, she taps into the heartbroken emotion at the heart of the original, and sings of “a story I know like the back of my hand,” adding: “I hope you read every line so you understand,” sliding effortlessly into the narrative. Explaining her involvement in the track, Chinouriri said: “I heard this song and instantly connected with it. There’s so many emotions that hit me the first time I heard it and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that.”
“Our hearts never break if we’re in a story,” Chrissi sings, taking inspiration from escaping inside stories from Harry Styles fanfiction, but ‘Love Me In Chapters II’ isn’t about avoidance. As it slides gracefully towards its conclusion, she imagines the better world she’s working towards creating: “There’ll be no pain and no crying, no sitting in silence / No wishing for change, no changing my diet / No guilt on your conscience, no blood on your hands.”
While she waits for the new world, she’s “content with my book in my hand,” and makes a compelling case for sitting with your uncomfortable feelings and imagining your way out of them.
For fans of: Nieve Ella, Debbie
Where to see them: Chrissi live dates TBA, Rachel Chinouriri supports Louis Tomlinson in the UK this autumn.
