Just ahead of the forthcoming new album (Murmurate, Oscillate) from British Birds the group share another new single which from Beehive Candy's perspective confirms we are in for a very special collection of new songs. The single is called 'Stuck In A Room'. Of it, singer Bobby Townson says "'There are days where you can't be bothered socialising or achieving anything at all. Put some crap on the TV, open a bottle of wine and write off whatever’s happening, I think it’s healthy to have those days."
As a reminder: ‘Murmuration’ is the low hum made by those vast, beautifully choreographed flocks of starlings as they simultaneously flap their wings and take to the sky. Some people say that the frequency of this unique, rumbling, oscillating sound can cure diseases...
One of the most exciting live bands in the UK, British Birds combine the garage-punk energy of Billy Childish, the wry English sophistication of XTC and the witty pop inventiveness of The Lovely Eggs. Like the murmurating flocks of starlings, they create a unique sound, and might even be able to cure diseases.
Based in Chorley, Lancashire, British Birds are a resolutely DIY band. Bobby records and mixes all the music; Emma creates all the artwork. Their first two albums were self-released, selling hundreds of copies at gigs and at a few chosen record stores. British Birds didn’t wait for permission to take flight. They just got on with it.
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Following “Fleury Street” and “Love on the Way Down,” Québec-based singer-songwriter Sébastien De Francesco shares “Leaving Now,” an intimate and bittersweet folk-rock single that imagines the final moments between two close friends from the perspective of the person preparing to leave. Moving between companionship, reassurance and acceptance, the song finds tenderness within loss while holding onto the belief that love and connection continue after someone is gone.
Inspired by the final afternoon Sébastien spent with a close friend who was dying of cancer, “Leaving Now” gradually became an imagined conversation between the two. Some lines are voiced from his friend’s perspective, asking for companionship as his memory and strength begin to fade, while others capture Sébastien’s instinct to comfort and protect him.
“The shifting point of view makes the song feel like an intimate conversation between two friends rather than simply a song about grief,” Sébastien shares. The song’s title arrives only at its conclusion. Sébastien spent nearly an entire day working on the ending, knowing the conversation needed to reach its final goodbye without becoming overly dramatic. Eventually, the words “But I’m leaving now” emerged, as though his friend were gently acknowledging that it was time to go. “‘Leaving Now’ expresses the immediacy of that goodbye, but the song also suggests that love and connection remain after someone leaves,” Sébastien explains.
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| Photo - Kelsey Gale |
Rachel Cribby has announced her debut album ‘I Can’t Wait To Forget This Later,’ to be released November 20 on First City Artists (Coco, Alexa Rose, Eliza Edens). Produced by Daniel Ledwell (Jenn Grant, Oh Pep, Ken Yates), the album shimmers with early aughts alt pop appeal—brisk melodies laden with sharp, darkly comical lyricism reminiscent of Aimee Mann, Rilo Kiley, or Liz Phair.
This week, she shares lead single “Rich Boy Luck,” a zipping and incisive assessment of a young love’s implosion. “Have you ever seen that meme that’s like, ‘who is the worst person you’ve ever met and why was it the guy you dated when you were 19?’” shares Cribby. “That’s what this song is about!” She continues, “The emotion that I cathartically ejected from this song is RAGE, which is a tough emotion for me. Feels good.”
"Rich boys never know what they want - What’s there to get when all the getting’s been got? - Rich boys don’t know anything about luck".
The Canadian-born, Detroit-based songwriter’s sardonic style is for more than listener’s amusement; it’s her healing method of choice. And in recent years, she’s needed one, having lost her father and left her beloved Montreal in quick succession. “It’s not like my twenties weren’t tumultuous,” shares Cribby. “I had plenty to sing about. I was dumped more than I can count and maybe did a bit of dumping myself. But something has happened to me in my thirties, where all of the big life stuff that I thought I could ignore by moving away, by trying to become a completely independent and self-assured person, smacked me in the face. And then it promptly started to eat me alive.”
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| Photo - Hayden Armstrong |
Continuing to push beyond the sound established on their breakout debut EP, Toronto indie quintet Next Week’s Washing shares “Clear Eyes,” a massive, dreamy, and cinematic new single that brings alternative rock energy together with densely layered shoegaze. Taken from the band’s forthcoming second EP, the track represents their most expansive recording yet, combining walls of textured instrumentation with upfront vocals and a growing confidence in the sound they can distinctly call their own.
“Clear Eyes” was the first song Next Week’s Washing wrote after completing their debut EP. Rather than starting over, the band approached the track as an opportunity to take the foundations they had already established and push them somewhere bigger.
“We wanted to take the sound we had begun to develop with the first six songs and push it forward,” the band explains. “We took a lot more time building layers into the recording, and the result is our biggest (sonically) sounding song yet.”
That progression can be heard throughout the track. While the instrumentation leans heavily into the band’s shoegaze influences, Next Week’s Washing deliberately pushed the vocals forward in the mix, allowing the songwriting to remain present within the song’s towering layers of guitars. The result lands somewhere between the immersive atmosphere of shoegaze and the immediacy of alternative and indie rock, bringing the different sides of the band’s identity into sharper focus.
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