Back for my monthly blog post (sorry - I'm trying!!!) with news from this week of some
excellent records on the way. I'll try and come back to ramble excitedly about
new Christof van der Ven (!!!) and the debut from
Jacob Alon but for now - news from friends of the blog and
one of my favourite bands Low Island. Their new album
bird is busy making its spring migration and will be available to
listen to from 29th May - I cannot wait!!!
The album announcement comes with new track and video spit it out which is below (and, as always, superb).
If you like what you're hearing and want to experience it in the round during album release week, the band are playing a few shows in Bristol, London, Brighton, Manchester and Oxford - tickets here. It has been far too long since I saw them live so I'm hoping I can make one of these or another show later in the year!
Sitting pretty at the top of my latest playlist update alongside tracks from Leif Vollebekk, Laura Marling and Matilda Mann - something altogether brilliant....! Nottingham quartet Divorce have just shared All My Freaks, the first single from their upcoming debut album Drive to Goldenhammer, due via Gravity / Capitol on 7th March 2025. I've been loving this group for a couple of years now, through a string of brilliant singles launching themselves onto the scene, and the marvellous Heady Metal EP. I'm all sorts of excited that they've got an album on the way, and I can't wait to hear more.
Talking about the record, the band says: "We’re very proud of Drive to Goldenhammer. We got to make an album the way we wanted to, kept the weird parts in, followed the warmth and didn’t overthink it. This album pays homage to seeking place and home; one of the great human levellers. Much of life feels at odds with this particular need. And to Goldenhammer; you are a reason to keep driving. We will find you again and again!"
On the new track All My Freaks the band add: "Being a musician can be brutal. I feel like you hear more and more songs coming from artists purely about the trials and tribulations of being a musician, feeling like you aren’t getting enough, or feeling like you’ve got too much and you don’t deserve it. It’s gotten a bit meta if you think about it. All My Freaks is about that too, written from the perspective of a humorous/tragic caricature of an up-and-coming artist, this song is laughing at our own egos and yet acknowledging the power that they wield. Putting this out as the first offering from our debut album felt fitting, as we are hypothetically straddling our jet skis and crossing the ocean of delusion to hopefully reach the isle of public approval."
Only the best news from Transgressive Records, always. They're celebrating their 20th (!!) anniversary this year with a run of shows later in the year and festival showcases, starting with Glastonbury later this week. For now though, album news from the label: New-Yorkers MICHELLE are back, following up their recent EP GLOW with news of an upcoming album. Their third studio record, Songs About You Specifically is due on September 27th, and features first single Oontz which you can hear below. Silky smooth and groovy as ever, I'm adoring this, and them. They're such a refreshing, exciting collective - a group that I'm always so thrilled to recommend to anybody who'll listen.
On the new record, the group have a new found closeness and vulnerability, formed through time spent living and writing in a house in Ojai, California and on the road. Talking about the developing bonds between the band, Emma shares: "there are friends I've had for almost my whole life who I won't know as intimately as I know members of this group. There isn't really an opportunity for that in any other kind of relationship in your life."
MICHELLE are Sofia D'Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee and Jamee Lockard.
I just stumbled onto the blog, thinking that I should probably write something soon.... and I was greeted with the glorious sight of 500,000 (!) all-time views. Say what?! That's a big number. Whether you're here by accident, or you're a regular scroller of my infrequent rambles - hi. Thank you!
Now, there couldn't really be anything else that I need to write about right now when my headphones have been slightly consumed with one particular piece of new music for the last week or so. In fact, I got an early listen of this and cried in the staffroom, of course I did. Absolute queeeeen Maggie Rogers is back with Don't Forget Me, the title track from her upcoming third album, due on 12th April (the same day as Cosmo Sheldrake's new album - lord help me.) I've listened a fair few times already and I am adoring the new track. Maggie is making exactly the music she wants to right now, and you can tell. It's gorgeous.
I have had so much fun at every stage of making this album. I think you can hear it in the songs. And I’m finding it’s sort of the key ingredient to making all of this really fly.
This album was written over five days, two songs a day — three days in December 2022, two in January 2023. It was written in chronological order.
Some of the stories on this album are mine. And for the first time really, some of them are not.
I wanted to make an album that sounded like a Sunday afternoon. Worn in denim. A drive in your favourite car. No make up, but the right amount of lipstick. Something classic. The mohair throw and bottle of Whiskey in Joan Didion's motel room. An old corvette. Vintage, but not overly Americana. I wanted to make an album to belt at full volume alone in your car, a trusted friend who could ride shotgun and be there when you needed her.
This has been such a transformational and special time in my life. I’m so grateful for many years of support and care I’ve been offered to let me come to all of this in my way and in my time. I can honestly say I’m more ready than I've ever been…and most importantly, I’m having a blast. I hope you love this record as much as I do.
The Staves are back! Album announcement time! Isn't it exciting????!!!
It feels like time has been a little bit wobbly for the past few years - somehow, their last album came out in early 2021, meaning there will have been just over three years between albums. We are ever so deserving of this new album. That 2021 record, the excellent Good Woman, was my album of the year. My most listened to album of that year, the first show that I got to after the various lockdowns - a record that really unlocked a deeper love of this band for me. A little bit exciting that they're back with a new one then.
Produced by John Congleton and their first release via Communion Records (I mean - a perfect fit if ever I saw one?!) All Now arrives on 22nd March 2024, and features recent single You Held It All (again - excellent) and this new single, the glorious title track.
On the track, Jess and Camilla say "it's a stream of consciousness about frustration and feeling overwhelmed with modernity. Kind of a rejection of the performative way we have to express ourselves now in order for it to be deemed valid."
Discussing the video, which was directed by James Arden, the pair add "We were in love with the old footage of singer songwriters performing in shows like 'The Old Grey Whistle Test', and the way the audience hung on the singer's every word. We wanted to play with the idea of 'All Now' being an ideology and a message. Something that came from artists and creatives, but is then hijacked and commodified by corporate creeps, preaching the message to gain power."
For a bunch of reasons, I've been pretty bad at blogging lately. My head is in
a bit of a weird place at the moment and being back to full time at work is
exhausting - it's hard to find the time around everything, to be honest. I
think that I've also perhaps felt a little distant from music/the blog in
general lately... I haven't been to many gigs since lockdown, and writing
about artists I'd seen live when I was living in Oxford was how the blog
really started to take off in the first place.
Recently, however, I've had a whirlwind couple of weeks of gigs in London:
first up, three Stornoway album release shows for their record
Dig The Mountain! which came out last week, and just hit #7 in the
album sales chart. Incredible! They played beautiful sets at
Banquet Recordsand
Rough Trade Eastand the
launch event at WWT London Wetland Centrewas such a special afternoon. Next, my forever favourites
The Hoosiers playing one of the best shows I've seen them play
at London's KOKO (enough said). And earlier this week,
Christof van der Ven headlining in London for the first time in a few
years and me getting to rub shoulders with blog favourites Bear's Den and The Staves. I'm eyeing up some more gigs soon... music is
pretty great, huh?
I'm feeling a teeny bit inspired by it all, so I'm making a tentative return
to trying to ramble about music - and where better to start than the return
of one of my absolute favourite musical pairings, Johnny Flynn and
Robert Macfarlane. Separately, they're one of my favourite musicians and one of my
favourite writers, and together they make art that I adore.
Lost In The Cedar Wood is a favourite album and the accompanying
performance was stunning, and I loved getting the chance to chat to Rob about
it earlier this year at Cambridge Folk Festival,where
he told me exactly what I wanted to hear, that they'd been working on more
music, and it was imminent...
A few weeks ago, the pair officially announced that they'd made a new record.
Hallelujah! The Moon Also Rises is releasing via the beautiful label
Transgressive on 10th November, and it features the first single
Uncanny Valley:
In his announcement of the record, Rob wrote:
It’s about darkness and light, winter & spring, burial and revelation, stories, weather and seasons, ghosts and paths and love and rivers, and other bits and bobs and pots and pans.
We sort of just kept on writing songs after finishing Lost In The Cedar Wood; some of them we found by walking tracks & rainy woods & streams together, & some by noodling in notebooks, & some in poems & stories, & almost all by laughing a lot.
Working & making with Johnny is just one of the great joys of my life. He’s a quiet, gentle, generous genius with a huge gift for making collaborative, creative connections between people. He’s also very funny.
Charlie Andrew is on producing duties, and the album features much of Johnny's Sussex Wit band as well as the Sheldrakes, Cosmo and Merlin. You basically couldn't imagine a lovelier and more wholesome bunch of creatives to make music together, and the results are unsurprisingly gorgeous. Second single No Matter The Weight is out now. Almost frustratingly brilliant.
Oh hi! We're back to writing blog posts too late, when I should be getting to sleep... but I haven't posted in a while and the press release for this one was sitting in my inbox whispering sweet nothings to me. I've just had a week off work and headed down to the South coast, to East Sussex. A trip to Brighton gave me aaaaaall of the The Great Escape memories from my couple of years there. A walk along the cliffs at Beachy Head provided the unexpected acrobatic trio you didn't know you needed - airplanes practicing overhead for this week's airshow, swallows dancing through the skies before their migration back to Southern Africa, and smaller still, some fancy blue butterflies. Back at the hotel, I had a look through my guidebook and lo and behold - we'd been admiring the Adonis Blue! Ooft. A real stunner!
Skip forward to staring at my inbox this evening, looking at the various tracks and announcements I'd like to try and write about and.... this one jumped out to me. Sussex resident and all round good egg/performer in many brilliant bands Emma Gatrill has just shared her new single Adonis Blue (you guessed it) and it is just as beautiful as its namesake. The track also features Conor O'Brien of Villagers - big yes to that!
The track arrives with news of Emma's new album Come Swim, arriving 24th November on Wilkommen Records, and featuring contributions from Emma's partner Marcus Hamblett (who also oversees production) as well as Helen Whitaker (flute) and Andrew Stuart Buttle (violin). More on the record over the next few months!
On the track, Emma shares: “Adonis Blue is a rare butterfly, the males have brilliant sky blue wings
with a fine black line around the edge. I spent the summer on a quest
wandering the South Downs in the hope of spotting this butterfly. The track
is about searching for things that are hard to find but accepting that the
quest itself can fulfil desires. It’s about the adventure and all that we
find along the way. Conor is such an inspirational musician and it was an
absolute honour to work with him on this song. The beat he crafted really
weaved itself into the orchestration and his trumpet really makes the song
for me!”
I'm dreadful at posting at the moment - so many things are pulling against me, taking up my time. The blog is kind of the easiest thing to step away from a little so that I don't completely burn out... but I'm here, writing late at night (obviously) about Oxford pal Richard Walters, who has a new solo record on the way. While he's certainly been busy in the interim (a new album with his project LYR came out in the past few weeks which I'm very keen to listen to when I get a moment) Murmurate marks Richard's first solo album since 2020. Born out of the pandemic but not particularly inspired by it, the tracks on the album explore our shared feelings of having changed through isolation. Of realising that you wanted different things and experiences once the world started to open back up.
Richard explains "when the world started to wake up again post lockdown I sprinted towards the door; I bolted, with unbelievable enthusiasm and joy, and I fell. I wiped out a fair few times in my desire to get back into a routine, to return to normality. I eventually found myself moving back from the bustle and noise, a combination of anxiety and a previously unearthed desire for more and more calm... For me this is not a lockdown record. It was largely written in 2022, post weirdness, but many of the songs do tap into that sense of post-lockdown-anxiety (PLA!?) and the mixed up, confused feeling of needing to be elsewhere but feeling the tug of home.
When it comes to music, throughout lockdown I was desperate to be in the room with other people making things again. In my opinion, Zoom just doesn’t cut it when it comes to finding common musical ground and building things up. That’s where the title ‘Murmurate’ comes from - I just wanted to feel that unison again, to move in time with other songwriters and musicians, to flock and gather and soar a little bit, even if the distance from my home life made me feel torn from time to time.”
The album is previewed with first track After Midnight, about which Richard shares: "my attempt at being Springsteen! The older I get, the more home-based I become. It's a feeling I've noticed other friends my age expressing. So it's a middle aged anthem about not wanting to be out on the town post-midnight, about the beauty of the quiet life and the taxi home."
Relatable.
Pre-save Murmurate here, due for release 17th November.
Current obsession - this snuck into my inbox, crept up on me and gave me a big ol' surge of happiness when I found it! Public Service Broadcasting are releasing a live album on 8th September, a recording of their BBC Proms performance This New Noise with BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jules Buckley. The Prom was a celebration of the power of radio, written in recognition of the centenary of the BBC. They're just SO brilliant, and this is them at their best. Reaaaaally good.
I feel like I write this so often, but I mean it - if PSB are new to you, you're in for SUCH a treat. They're unlike anything else that I listen to and that is easily one of the best things about them. Completely brilliant. They've got a few records under their belts already, and I'd start with the (now ten-years old!) debut Inform - Educate - Entertain, which is how I was first introduced to their music (by a friend on a train to London - there's not many artists where I can pinpoint the moment when I first listened to them, so you know they're special!)
J. Willgoose, Esq shares: "at the time, not knowing if the Proms performance would be a true one-off, I tried to focus on enjoying the occasion as much as possible. It was a privilege to play with such skilled performers as the BBC SO and especially under such an astute guiding hand in Jules. I'm absolutely delighted that we're releasing This New Noise in physical form, and remixing it allowed me to discover all over again the intricacy and dynamism of the orchestra's performance."
Two Dizzy posts in a row? Yes indeed. The best news - they've just announced details of their third album, the self-titled Dizzy, which will be released via Communion Records on 18th August. The album news arrives alongside Open Up Wide - perhaps their most pop-tinged track to date, and I'm in love with them all over again.
In a beautiful act of synchronicity, the record arrives the day after their debut album Baby Teeth hits a milestone, turning five years old. The new tracks and new record give us a Dizzy who are far more confident in their art, but just as unique and endearing as the band I fell in love with all those years ago. Can not waaaait to hear more. But I'll have to.
I'll no doubt ramble lots more about the record over the coming months so for now, I'm going to focus on the new track... which Katie describes as "a tongue-in-cheek ode to a music industry we've never understood all that well." On the process of creating the new track, she explains "when we started recording the album, our producer David [Pramik] was super conscious of cutting the fat from each song. One afternoon he encouraged us to write our parts in a simpler, more 'spoonfed' fashion for easy listening, when Mack piped up cheekily 'Open up wide! Here comes the airplane!' The next morning we were all feeling a bit resentful of that mindset and 'Open Up Wide' came to be while we were having our morning coffees."
Dizzy are heading to the UK for a short run of shows in May - two London dates are already sold out, but it looks as if tickets are still available for Bristol and Brighton. Tickets here.
Just the best news! Sivu has an album coming - woooooooooo!! Having returned with single Wild Horse Running a few weeks back - his first new music since 2017 record Sweet Sweet Silent - James has just announced an album of the same name, due for release via Square Leg Records on 9th June. I will almost certainly spend the ensuing three months rambling about how brilliant this news is. The track gets a little break from my headphones, as the album news arrives alongside new single Apollo. Big love for that one!
On the new track, James shares: "it was the first song we did in the studio and so it felt like a blueprint for what the record was going to be. The word Apollo just rolled off the tongue when I was first writing this song. Diving deeper into the mythology of Apollo, being the god of poetry and music art, I pursued my relationship with creating and how I am in some ways a slave to it. Accepting that gave me a sense of freedom and a headspace to address my long-term and (at times) troubled relationship with it. No matter the lengths I have gone to at time to escape it, I get clawed back in (which I am incredibly thankful for). I will never stop writing music, I understand that now, but it is my Achilles heel."
Sivu headlines Courtyard Theatre in London on 14th June - tickets here.
Goodness me. I love Rae Morris. So much. Her record Rachel@Fairyland is a shoe-in for my album of the year round-up (which will, in true CMAT style, arrive *very* late in the year) and it looks as if she's after a second spot in the list as she is releasing Rachel@Pianoland on 25th November. Ohhhhh yes! My personalised vinyl-only piano version of her previous record of Someone Out There is a prized possession - you could say that I'm a little bit excited for this. First track birdsong on the breeze (a reworking of Morning Isn't Morning) is out now and is completely and utterly sublime. If you love this as much as I do, Rae is heading out on tour from tomorrow (!) taking in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and London's Lafayette on Tuesday. Now, to persuade myself that Rae is absolutely worth tackling trains for and grab a London ticket...
I'm fully in a bit of a sad song phase at the moment, lapping up all of the gorgeous harmonic acoustic music that I can get my ears on. I shared the new one from Lizzie Reid a couple of days ago, mentioning her feature on this... it's too good for me not to share this one too. Jake Whiskin has announced his self-titled debut album with the single Drive You Home. Releasing via Dance To The Radio on 4th November, this is such a stunning taster of the record, which was produced by Lee Smith (Easy Life, Holly Humberstone) and Rob Slater (Yard Act, Crake) at Greenmount Studios, close to where Jake grew up.
Talking about the new track, Jake shares that it is "a song about a relationship that's on its last legs and plays out over a firework display whilst you internalise how much you've grown apart over the years. I pretty much wrote the whole song around the lyric 'I will drive you out your mind and then I'll drive you home'. It always felt like a duet to me so we got Lizzie Reid on board who is obviously amazing and she just took it to a whole new place."
Beautiful song alert. Album news alert. Be alert - the utterly enchanting Sophie Jamieson has shared news of her debut album Choosing (YES!) with first single Sink. The album is due via Bella Union on 2nd December. I've long been a fan of Sophie's music and I can't wait (but I guess I'll have to...!) If you like what you hear below, I'd recommend her most recent EP, Release.
Sophie describes it as "a record about hurting yourself, realising what you are doing, trying to understand why and trying to learn to stop", adding that she "spent a lot of time finding pain unbearable, trying to avoid it in every which way possible and only ever making it worse by running away. It was the most isolating experience."
"These songs are about trying and falling to love yourself and other people, trying again, getting it really wrong, seeing things blurry and then seeing them clearly, and making the choice to pick yourself up, choose yourself, set yourself free by allowing yourself to feel pain, anxiety, loneliness, and then the beginnings of joy, love and connection."
On the new track, Sophie shares: "This song comes from the vulnerable place of knowing you are about to lose control over using alcohol as a band-aid. It also bridges the undeniably strong place of realising that you can choose to rescue yourself. I wrote it with an image of being alone on a desert island, some place that was so quiet and beautiful it felt eerie, almost threatening and incredibly lonely."
Some brill album news for your Thursday from Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) and Jess Williamson. Both successful artists in their own right, they've joined forces as Plains and have announced their record I Walked With You A Ways, due 14th October. As a one off collaboration, supported by a North American tour, there's something special in the momentary existence of the project. Something to be truly enjoyed while it happens. First single Problem With It is out now! No problems here, in fact, I'm loving this...
Katie shares: "I'm thrilled to announce this new project and album. I've felt a connection to Jess's songwriting and a kinship with her since we met years ago. Getting to lean into the influence of the music we both grew up with while also making something that feels very current and fresh to me was a great experience and I'm so happy to finally share it."
Jess adds: "Making this record with Katie was a deeply expansive experience for me as a songwriter. I really trust her ear and sensibilities, and she encourage me to explore aspects of my songwriting that in the past I've shied away from. Katie's support was so important for me as we wrote this album. We gave ourselves permission to lean into the music that raised us and write the kind of classic timeless songs that we both grew up singing along to. For me that was The Chicks and Dolly Parton, and having a place to channel those influences was an absolute blast. My hope with Plains was to tap into something Universal. I love the album we made, and I'm so excited to play it live."
Oh my goodness. I'm completely in love with this - one of my favourite tracks
and videos of the year so far. So good! We all love The Big Moon,
right? They're back!!!!! New album Here Is Everything is due October
14th and the first single from it is as dreamy as the band themselves. The
Louis Bhose directed video will give you all of the friendship
feels. I could ramble about how brill it all is (the Pooneh Ghana album cover too...!) but I wanted to share this from Jules, sharing to Instagram recently.
Hello its jules here. I wanted to try and explain a bit where ‘Wide Eyes’ came from. Its a short song and there aren’t loads of lyrics but in that magical way that songs can mean so much and be made of so little, its tied up in a giant tangle of emotions and experiences for me and my family and our band.
It was 2021. And I was desperate to write a really big, happy song. I was 5 months into motherhood and my soul was overflowing with something but I was too physically and mentally exhausted to actually string words together and define it and make music with it. Later that year I met @jessicawinter666 who came into my life like an angel and helped me turn those jumbled feelings into a song and I think its just a mad snapshot of a time when life just felt huge and holy and raw and incredible. I was still breastfeeding, I was barely sleeping, I was losing my hair, I was pumping and sweating and crying and lonely and only just about coping but amongst all that, I felt a burning love and a new kind of happiness. I guess the world felt innocent again. For a while anyway.
For me this song feels so personal but when Soph, Celia and Fern stepped in it turned into something bigger, and it feels like friendship and promise - we have loved every minute of being back together and doing what we do. The way they have supported me not just musically but personally through the last year has been just huge and when I listen to the songs on this album I hear all of it and feel all of it again. I love them they are the best godmothers and queens of my life
So yes its hard to explain how much this song means to me, I’ve probably touched on about 0.00002% of it, but basically, after doing the whole rollercoaster of pregnancy and birth and becoming a mum and that whoooolllle mess, this song marked the time when i started to feel like myself again. And that’s SUCH an important time for a new parent. Its a place of pure relief and its so full of love and joy and Im so glad it exists.
Tumultuous political carnage aside, I've been feeling pretty under the weather this week and keeping on top of the blog has felt a bit of a chore (boo). Then - into my inbox - a quick reminder of just why I spend so much time doing this... some *very* exciting news about an artist I love, and an early listen of something new. The artist in question is Low Island (Oxford superstars/general heroes) and they've just released new track Can't Forget. I'm not sure exactly what we did to deserve this, but the track is taken from their SECOND ALBUM (!!) Life In Miniature which is releasing on 4th November, via their own label Emotional Interference. Now breathe.
Can't Forget arrives with artwork born out of a collaboration between the band, creative director and sculptor Freya Douglas Ferguson, photographer Brian Rankin and floral artist MOS. The track has a brilliant live video, directed by the band themselves... my desperation to see them live again as soon as possible is growing by the second as I watch it.
On the track, Carlos shares: "it's a reflection on the headyness of youth and a fear of growing up. Verse 2 is a nod to the day I left home; as I drove down the street, I caught my Dad crying and waving me away in the wing-mirror of my car. It's one of those memories that gets printed right onto the front of your mind and that you never forget."
Hot off the press album news time, folks. (Hey - am I the press?!)
Art Moore have just announced their self-titled debut album, due for
release via ANTI-Records on 5th August. The announcement arrives
alongside their second track, Muscle Memory, although the members of
the band are all long-familiar faces on the scene - they're a trio made up of
Taylor Vick (AKA Boy Scouts) and
Ezra Furman collaborators Sam Durkes and
Trevor Brooks.
Having worked on soundtracks with Ezra previously, Sam and Trevor originally
joined forces with Taylor with the intention of writing for movies and art
projects -
"it was like [...] let's think of a movie scene or a photograph or still
image and see if we can write some shit around it to see if we can pitch
it", says Durkes. "Four songs in, I think, after the first recording session, we realized it
was going well, and it was pretty efficient" adds Brooks.
"Making music with both Sam and Taylor has always been so easy. I record
other artists, and it's pretty rare to be so quickly on the same page with
people. We don't have to say much - we kind of get where each other is
coming from. It happens way too easily."
The pandemic saw the trio sending recordings to one another over email, adding
a digital aspect to the project. Taylor explains "I think [the pandemic] also probably contributed to the whole idea of
life, 'Well, we might as well just make an album, 'cause it's July and
things aren't any different'. We were still at home, so we thought we might
as well keep using this time." I'm glad they did - because the new track is a delight - listen below!
On the new single, Taylor shares "Muscle Memory was inspired by the many phases of life we go through
and the friendships that exist within them that inevitably transform as we
continue through life. I wanted to write about this experience from a
neutral perspective, one with the belief that it's neither a good or bad
thing but simply a given in life. It's a more fictionalized version of my
personal experience which was the kind of writing I gravitated towards most
in this band."
The exciting album news just keeps on coming... this time it's Utrecht's Banji, with news of their record Freshcakes, due October 14th via [PIAS] Recordings. On first hearing their debut single, I wrote here "if it's a juicy ear-worm you're after, then look no further" and it's been a joy to get to know the band sonically with the run of singles that has followed over the past year or so. Can't wait for the record - and very much enjoying new single Cornflakes.
On the track, vocalist Morris Brandt shares: "I'm prone to developing little addictions pretty easily. Just the tiny things that get me through my day. The overall subject turned out to dig a little deeper into my own habits - temptations, quick releases, and with that, carelessness. Always being on the lookout for a little bit more than what you already have. Enticement can lead you to concentrate on the wrong things, and make you forget that you always have a choice. Because, if these dependencies develop on a bigger scale, they can have a significant impact on the people around you, and cause you to put up a front. Hiding behind it for the sake of someone else. I was noodling around with these ideas, using metaphors and different voices to inhabit the lines in the song."
Talking on Freshcakes, Morris continues: "Banji's songwriting has always reflected my surroundings and environment. Big themes of this album are struggling with adulthood, self-worth and self-esteem, mental health and frustrations, addiction, and finding your own self-discipline and maturity over time. The lyrics that flowed out of me throughout the making of Freshcakes tend to be built around introverted thoughts, personal social situations, and subjects that I find difficult to dissect. Stressful feelings about mistakes made, expectations unfulfilled, and the guilt that surrounds that. At a young age I've learned to use music as an output for frustration and stress. The main thing that I wanted to do with this record was find a place for those feelings and letting them go, kind of like therapy in a way."
I looooove Maggie Rogers and I am so so so excited that she is back with new music!!!! It feels like a long time coming since Heard It In A Past Life (and SO much has happened since that record came out and brought so much joy and meaning to my life - my fave of 2019) and I am soooooo ready for new Maggie and to be enjoying those witchy feminist popstar vibes live. New track That's Where I Am is taken from her forthcoming record Surrender, due for release 29th July - cannot wait!! The official video (co-directed by Maggie, Michael Scanlon and Warren Fu is a love letter to Maggie's adopted hometown of NYC, and features some notable cameos...
On the track, she shares: "That's Where I Am is a story I'd been carrying around for many years, the story of a love that had been with me and unfolding for a long time. A lot of the events that Surrender chronicles take place in New York City. In the stark solitude and distance of Covid, it was the backdrop for all my claustrophobic fantasies. The proximity and pleasure of just staring at strangers. The way a night could unfold. Events that interrupt your day instead of having to consciously and deliberately make each decision. I longed for someone to sweat on me. Spill their beer on my shoes. Be too tall for me to see at the concert. The city's music and attitude was a big source of inspiration for the record. For all these reasons, there was only ever one place we could shoot the video."
"I've always said that New York is the city that winks back. It's a main character. It's a friend, a lover, an enemy sometimes. In many ways, the music video is about that New York love story. And on those filming days, it felt like the city was on our side. We got our first taste of true New York spring. That feral downtown explosion when suddenly everyone's smoking on the sidewalks in short sleeves and drinking gin and tonics. The appearance of a few classic New York characters - David Byrne, The Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser, and photographer Quil Lemons - made the daydream feel complete."
