Ava Valianti’s latest single, “Distant,” arrives as a revelation: at 15, she already sings with the world-wise nuance of a seasoned storyteller. “Distant” is a song that captures the ache of watching childhood bonds unravel, packaging that wistfulness into a melody so bright you temporarily forget the sting underneath. But if you listen closely, you hear every wince of nostalgia and twinge of heartbreak.
The production on “Distant” is impossible not to catch; sunny guitars, bouncy drum patterns, and shimmering harmonies that could score any summer road trip. But below that breezy surface, Ava threads in lyrical passages of quiet devastation, sketching memories of vacant streets and dying inside jokes. It’s that tug-of-war between fizzy sound and bittersweet wistfulness that lends the track its buoyancy: you’re bopping along even as your heart aches at the notion of friends who grow apart.
While her voice retains a youthful purity, it’s delivered with an unexpected force. She draws us into memories of scraped knees and shared secrets, only to gently remind us how life can sometimes pull us in other directions. The production rises in all of the right places as the chorus takes off into glistening heights, then allows us to descend back into the stark realization that nothing ever lasts.
Ava Valianti is not only grieving what can no longer be; she’s already looking forward to what comes next. She builds herself a kind of shrine to adolescence, that brief, intertwined, and absolutely universal snap of a moment. On “Distant,” this young phenom shows she can turn teenage heartache into a shimmering, sun-soaked anthem you won’t forget.