A Place For Owls – how we dig in the earth | Album Review

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Broom of Destruction Records

A Place for Owls open up their stellar sophomore album, how we dig in the earth, with “go on,” an acoustic ballad that crescendos into strings, keys, and gang vocals. Lead singer Ben Sooy’s voice is gentle–but not weak–in conveying the general human problem of not being okay at all. This first track is perfectly indicative of the 45 minutes of humane intimacy and tenderness found throughout the record, the strengths that separate APFO from both their influences and their peers.

Once “go on” reaches its peak, “hourglass” roars in with thick, crunchy guitars, crashing cymbals, and Sooy’s beating, bleeding open heart. The song tells the story of his and his partner’s miscarriage presented in momentous, wall-of-sound emotional rock that is textured and carefully layered. It sounds like the color of a densely wooded forest during the first chill, with the warmth of a cabin just a few steps out of reach. It is here that I imagine myself feeling the love Sooy has for his partner, their unborn children, and the life they are building together. Every grain of sand in “hourglass” is the sound of love vying against the unexpected, harsh realities of life.

Without losing the established solemnity of the album, “broken open seed” is as much fun as it is a reflection on the endless nature of waiting for sunlight, the bloom and blossom of oneself.

A broken open seed, imagine me
Lying 'neath the ground all covered in leaves
The very voice of earth
That groans beneath the dirt
When everything's asleep
Everything's asleep
Everything but me

I’ve listened to enough emo music to have developed a keen ear for spotting the quiet-loud dynamic range utilized in many of the genre’s songs. It is a trope of emo that I love, but also one that is expertly subverted on “broken open seed.” One can easily imagine a version of this song that begins quietly, slowly watered with thunderous guitars, and blooms into a headbanging conclusion. Yet APFO go against my ear’s expectations and land in a quiet place to spread their message of love and support for one another. Being themselves is APFO’s superpower.

In contrast to the hooky synths of its predecessor, “huston lake” is another simple and direct ballad reminiscent of the first half of “go on.” Every time I’ve listened to this album, I tear up on this track. I can’t tell you if it’s because I’m a sucker for soft piano and haunting lap-steel guitar or if it is for how beautiful and cathartic it is for me to hear someone let go so enthusiastically when all I do is strive to maintain control in my own life. Perhaps I’m still processing whatever traumas I’ve faced, but I prefer to give grace to Sooy, Nick Webber, Daniel Perez, Ryan Day, Jesse Cowan, and co.: they inspire a release through sparse instrumentation that brings listeners closer to the divine.

At the center of how we dig in the earth lies the one-two punch of “a tattoo of a candle” and “desmond hume.” The former is full of sing-along melodies and the most optimistic lyric I’ve ever heard: “draw your breath in / hope is a weapon.” (I’m already considering a tattoo of that lyric, and the album is not even a month old.) If one follows the extended network of APFO and their Holy Fools, then it is no surprise that they are genuine people who ultimately believe in the beauty of life, community, and love. This authenticity shines through in “tattoo’s” chorus, using specific details to communicate universal feelings:

I'm smoking cigarettes with Daniel
A tattoo of a candle
A flicker and a fade
And everything has changed
I don't need another reason
It's just another season
The leaves will fall and fade
And everything's the same

As “a tattoo of a candle” winds down, “desmond hume” continues the band’s streak of Lost references and ends the A side of the album on an appropriately somber, contemplative note. Evoking the quietude of “go on” and “huston lake,” Webber plays piano and Sooy picks a guitar while reflecting on the death of a stepfather who never really understood him or his complex relationship with his mother. 

Along with the solemn devastation inherent in multiple levels of grief, what stays with me in “desmond hume” is the metaphor of spirits in Sooy’s backpack. At the onset of the song, he calls them American Spirits, identifying them as cigarettes. After processing some of his grief throughout the track, the second “Spirits” lyric becomes something else to me. Sure, they are his comfort in times of distress, but they are also the hauntings he carries with him, always just a light away from springing to life.

In “haunted,” Sooy becomes the spirit. Layers of acoustic and twinkly electric guitars accompanied by a lone trumpet isolate his vocal, emphasizing the loneliness he sings about. When Elliott Green and the full band join, APFO enter full-cathartic-anthem territory, foreshadowing the album’s closing track.

It’d be remiss of me not to discuss “help me let the right ones in.” As an avid Jimmy Eat World fan, Sooy knows the importance of the last song on an album. It is the final statement of the record as an artifact. What thoughts and feelings are left with the listener when all is said and done? Not just that, but the last song must put a ribbon on all that’s come before. Unsurprisingly, APFO stick the landing. “help me let the right ones in” is the call to action after an album of grief and gratitude through the lens of elevating tremolo-picked guitars, pounding drums, and a buoyant, thumping bass. If the beginning of how we dig in the earth is green in its earnest descent into catharsis, the end is a dandelion, Coldplay-colored yellow basking in the warmth and intimacy of love, friendship, family, and the acceptance of change.

Brooklyn native Joe Wasserman moonlights as an English teacher when he’s not playing bass in the LVP. Find more of his writing on Substack.

Haley Heynderickx – Seed of a Seed | Album Review

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Mama Bird Recording Co.

Did we take a wrong turn somewhere? This is something I’m sure everyone has thought at some point in their life, whether that’s in relation to a big life decision such as a move or career change, the direction of a relationship, or something as simple as a literal wrong turn while driving. As a person who grew up in the Information Age, with every global horror and consequence of full-throttle late-stage capitalism beamed directly into my brain, that question becomes haunting and so much bigger than myself. I know for a fact I’m not alone in that torment. If there’s one idea that much of my favorite art from 2024 explores, it would be that kind of existential dread: a cocktail of emptiness and anxiety that can only come from living day-to-day in a world that’s seemingly spiraling more and more out of our control. 

This year, I’ve heard everyone from Vince Staples to MJ Lenderman struggle to find meaning, let alone happiness, in modern times. On “Seed of a Seed,” the lead single and title track off of her long-awaited sophomore album, Haley Heynderickx is in the midst of this same search for contentment. “Cause we all need a sense of lore sometimes / Like I need a silent mind / In a consumer flood,” she sings in one of the verses, the swaying guitar pattern tracking the whole song, joined by a forlorn cello. She wonders if her parents and her “parents’ parents” knew any better before quickly concluding that they couldn’t have. Seed of a Seed is an album concerned with a great many things, but the thought that Heynderickx returns to over and over is this idea of cycles and history and how to reconnect with nature and serenity when we’re caught up in systems far outside of one person’s control. Maybe we took that wrong turn a long time ago…

For the unfamiliar, Haley Heynderickx is a Portland-based singer-songwriter whose debut album, I Need to Start a Garden, has netted her a devoted following in the six years since its release off the back of its enchanting take on indie folk. Where many of her peers blend folk with indie pop and rock influences from the 90s and 2000s, Heynderickx seems to draw from a much older well of inspiration, with mid-20th century folk and jazz chief among them. I remember catching her road test new material while opening for Lucy Dacus on her 2022 jaunt through the Northwest and feeling transported to the late 60s, wondering if this is what it felt like to stumble into a New York bar and watch Joni Mitchell hone now-classic songs.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has had the opportunity to hear Haley Heynderickx perform in the past two years that Seed of a Seed finds her doubling down on her classic influences while bringing them into the 21st century. “Gemini” begins the album in a place of anxiety, with Heynderickx channeling Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” as she attempts to push down the part of herself railing against all the mundane anxieties of daily life. Nothing is spared, as everything from phone addiction and ignored messages to aimless spending and annoyed strangers get namechecked in a storm of distractions. Each repetition of the guitar motif is underscored by a rising tension until she finally relents to that voice and all the instrumentation joins in what may as well be the musical transcription of a deep breath. 

Regardless of how in vogue her influences are, the strength of Heynderickx’s songwriting is undeniable, as evidenced by “The Bug Collector” off of her debut eventually going viral on social media platforms like TikTok years after release. In that song, she gently removes insects from sight out of love for a panicked partner, but on Seed of a Seed, she has turned her attention to the bugs themselves. “Redwoods (Anxious God)” sees Heynderickx cutting through a forest of whimsical imagery straight out of a mythological fable, repeating a message she received from a pebble: “Humankind is getting lost / Not even little bugs want to talk with us.” The harmony between man and our neighbors is blocked by an impossibly high barricade centuries in the making. It’s a sentiment that risks coming off as hippie preaching, but the childlike wonder captured in both the imagery and plucky performances puts even someone as terminally online as myself right there with Heynderickx. With each infectious refrain, I imagine dancing among the eponymous redwoods and yearning to hear their wisdom, only for the final line to bring me crashing back to civilization. 

Elsewhere, “Mouth of a Flower” ponders the hierarchy of the world, tracing the life cycle from a hummingbird drinking a flower’s nectar to the various ways that humans have taken from the environment and each other. Once again, it’s easy to imagine this inducing some eye rolls in the hands of a less compelling writer, but Haley’s tone is never accusatory. There’s so much beauty in the give and take between man and nature, but also an underlying concern about how imbalanced these exchanges have become as our consumption continues to expand. Flourishes of cello and electric guitar inject extra moments of color into the song, but the former sours towards the end, its chugging rhythm twisting the core refrain, “And we take, and we take, and we take,” into something unnerving. 

These moments of tension may underscore the themes of overstimulation and imbalance, but it’s well worth noting that the experience of listening to Seed of a Seed is so far from either. I only stress them so heavily because it’s easy to get swept up in just how beautiful the vast majority of this record sounds and miss those hints of darkness. Haley Heynderickx pulls a kind of magic trick on the listener with this record. She and her band are able to conjure up their own archaic and grandeur sonic environment so casually that the appeal seems simple to anyone tuning in, but there is a meticulous craft behind it all. Their attention to detail is infectious. Every production choice, each slide of the trombone or pluck of a guitar string, sounds perfectly designed to make you appreciate the nearest patch of green in your vicinity. 

On “Gemini,” this manifests as her “pull[ing] the fuck over just to stare at purple clover off the highway,” kickstarting a series of interrogations into what really matters in her life. Seed of a Seed feels like it’s constantly trying to bottle that moment of realignment of the self and give it to the listener – a plea to value what is in front of us rather than striving for what isn’t. Nowhere is Haley more transparent about this endeavor than on “Sorry Fahey,” where she ponders the correlation between learning to appreciate the little things in life and the trials of adult life. It’s both achingly earnest and playful in a way that’s fast becoming a signature of Heynderickx’s music, full of musical twists and turns, as well as the songwriter lovingly admonishing her cat for being an asshole. 

Maybe to be an adult
To know your body keeps score
Is when you start to appreciate
Start to really appreciate

That you could call your Pa
Or a friend
And not bail on
The thing next Tuesday
Cause it’s a new day
It’s an offering
It’s a kettle
Making you tea
Ginger

It’s this that acts as the key to Haley’s outlook. Finding peace and purpose as an act of gentle protest is an idea that flows throughout the record. “Tell me truly, what is your dream? Tell me truly, is it the city life?” Heynderickx probes on the magnificent single “Foxglove,” asking the listener to reconsider what they need to be happy with in this life. The daydream may die, but that doesn’t mean fulfillment goes with it. That idea has followed me ever since I made my way through Northwest Portland alongside my partner one recent evening. As we walked by all the locally owned storefronts as they closed down for the night and the autumn wind blew through the trees, I felt her chilled hand in mine and was overwhelmed by an increasingly rare sense of contentment. My mind flickered back to the title track’s mantra: “If I get lucky / Maybe a glass of wine / If I get lucky /Maybe a hand next to mine.”

More than creature comforts or even the majesty of nature, Seed of a Seed imparts the importance of community to its listeners. After all, if people are responsible for the messes we find ourselves in, maybe it’s people who can help untangle that same bundle of stressors and fears. Viewed through this lens, that choice of title seems even more clever. We are all products of our environment and those who came before us and, by extension, their environments and the choices they’ve made. We are caught up in an impossibly sprawling tapestry of these people’s choices, which can be terrifying to think about. How can positive change ever be enacted with so many moving pieces out of our control and at odds with one another?

But there’s beauty in this idea, too. On the album’s unassuming closer, “Swoop,” Heynderickx directly reckons with her own family history and how she wound up in the station she finds herself in. She recounts her grandmother’s immigration from Hong Kong and the birth of her mother before visiting the former’s grave, settling into a sense of belonging at her place within this lineage. It’s a perfect punctuation after the wistful “Jerry’s Song” chronicles the shared experiences of a tried-and-true bond. In that song, she compares herself to clay and her subject to limestone amidst a flurry of memories, a different blurred image coming into focus with each listen. A cheeky line about splitting a sandwich in “divided America” feels prescient in hindsight, but it only highlights Haley’s belief in the power of little things. That tapestry already has so much conflict and innumerable clashing threads, so maybe the most anyone can do at the individual level is to be kind and generous to those immediately around them. It’s slow work, but if enough join in, something beautiful could be woven into the piece. 

I’ve had the privilege of seeing Haley Heynderickx again in the last month, almost two years since those opening slots, and with a full band this time around. It was a full circle moment to have songs I’d first heard in a live setting performed after becoming familiar with them for the purposes of this review, but more than any particular song they played, it’s an interaction with the crowd that keeps crossing my mind. In an interval between songs, an audience member asked if Haley had managed to start her garden, to which she ruefully admitted she hadn’t, citing limited living spaces and her touring schedule. Her trombonist, Denzel Mendoza, was quick to reaffirm by gesturing to the room and calling either the music, the moment, the audience, or a mix of all three “her garden.” It was a genuinely sweet exchange, and you could tell it meant a lot to the singer to think of it that way. Even if she hadn’t considered it before, Seed of a Seed is a product of that mindset: ten songs meant to sow the simple joys of nature and companionship into the brains of all who hear them. If we’re lucky, it will reap a bountiful harvest.

Wesley Cochran lives in Portland, OR where he works, writes, and enjoys keeping up with music of all kinds, with a particular fondness for indie rock. You can find him @ohcompassion on Twitter, via his email electricalmess@gmail.com, or at any Wilco show in the Pacific Northwest.

Bottom Bracket – I’m So Afraid of Where | Track-by-Track Review

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Count Your Lucky Stars

To be in the realm of music and bands is a tumultuous one. It is a space where every person is pining to create something that might reach beyond the confines of a singular human experience and resonate with a complete stranger. At the same time, it is an exhausting and unforgiving space in what it asks of its participants. Every week is another announcement of a band throwing in the towel due to the strains and pressures of running this gauntlet; every week, another band decides to weather on despite it all.

I'm So Afraid of Where, the second LP from Chicago, IL’s Bottom Bracket, is an unflinching exploration of personal fallout, strained friendships, and the search for belonging in unfamiliar surroundings. Across its ten tracks, Mario Cannamela (guitar, lead vocals), Tim Recio (bass, vocals), and Rob Diaz (drums, percussion, vocals) channel three years of labor and love into a record unafraid to hold a mirror up to the most difficult parts of what it means to grow as a person and as a band.

As we dive into each track on this immensely special record, I had the privilege of getting Cannamela’s perspective to inform us on some of the nuances in the lyrics and stories that helped craft these songs. Grab your water bottles and strap on your bike helmets. This is I'm So Afraid of Where.

1. A Condemnation

“A Condemnation” opens the album with the beautiful guitar work that comes standard in any Bottom Bracket song. Once the track is in full swing, Cannamela delivers the haunting line, “I’m so afraid of where / We’ll end up after this,” introducing the album’s title and central theme of drifting apart from friends and bandmates, as well as struggling with a sense of belonging. “I always do this to myself / Leaving friendships to collect dust on the shelf,” laments Cannamela at the end of the track. This song wrestles with the pain of unresolved tension, regret, and the weight of holding others accountable. The urgency in the guitars mirrors the emotional tumult, setting a gripping precedent for what's to come. 

“Courtney and I moved from Springfield, Illinois, to Chicago three years ago,” says Cannamela about the track. “It was a hard move to make, but I wanted more than what I was getting out of the Springfield scene, and Courtney, for a long time, struggled to find fulfillment there as well, despite both of us having grown up there.”

2. Great Lake Jumper

A dream of escape drives “Great Lake Jumper” and its anthemic hope and yearning. Inspired by Cannamela’s move to Chicago, the track opens with sprinting guitars that mimic the speed of biking through city streets. The tension between staying in the comfort of the known and leaping into the unknown finds itself soaring high as the entire band shouts, “I bet I could jump my bike over the lake / If I went fast enough.” Here is a song about the possibility the big city offers, as well as the anxiety of being swallowed into anonymity underneath the scope of Chicago and Lake Michigan.

“I often would stare at the lake in wonderment when I would come up here to visit before moving here,” says Cannamela. “I still do now that I’m here, to be honest.”

3. Spin Cycle

“Spin Cycle,” the final single released for the album, portrays a fracturing of friendship through the lens of awkward silences and simmering discontent. Growing detachment, fueled by miscommunication and unmet expectations — the metaphor of a relationship stuck in a “spin cycle” feels apt as Cannamela laments the repetitive patterns that erode connection. Punctuated by Diaz’s pinpoint work on the toms and Recio’s hypnotic bass lines, the instrumentation exemplifies how Bottom Bracket masterfully allows each member of the trio to take a central spot in the composition. One of the highest points of this track comes at the 1:30 mark when Cannamela says, “If your life’s a T-shirt,” the entire band emphatically answers with, “Then I must be the stain” before Recio and Diaz enter a couplet that will have everybody in the room grooving.

4. Rainbow in the Rear View

In the second single released for the album, Cannamela recalls his move to Chicago and the urging of his mother to stay behind due to unsavory weather. Sonically, the guitarwork jumps and patters around the fretboard, casting a twinkly rainscape of hammer-ons as Cannamela vacillates between the dream of making it out of his hometown and the laments of leaving home. “To me, this day was always coming,” sings Cannamela in the second verse, further compounding the predetermination of this journey against the anxieties of his mother, who worries of rain and hopes she can delay the inevitable by even just a day more.

To leave home, to be the one that’s left — both are heaving emotional battles to wage. Cannamela finds the perfect center of this axis in the chorus as he sings, “Rainbow in the rear view / I can see you.” And what a beautiful way to celebrate an exit, not by mulling on some rainbow in the future that may come when the clouds finally part, but to see all the colors and hues in the place you’re coming from. Whether it’s a mother, a hometown, or history, this song stands as a monument of how having the right things behind you serves as a means to push forward, even “when lightning cracks the sky.” (And for the record, if you’re not screaming that last line when they play this song live, I have questions for you.)

5. Camouflage

How do you balance the line between someone you count on versus the realization that you don’t see eye to eye with them on much of what they do? An ode to internalized frustration, the third single, “Camouflage,” opens with an uptempo rhythm to anchor us sonically in the tense landscape of bedroom conversation and close proximities. Exploring the discomfort of trying to appease another while sacrificing one’s boundaries, Cannamela reflects on the strain of such close confines in the lines:

But two steps into your bedroom
And I already want to leave
I don’t need another silly scheme
I need the end of this fucking lease

The song’s tight rhythms and layered guitars give way midway through to leave Cannamela and the guitars singularly exposed to deliver the tried and true “I hope you know it’s not you / No, it’s me” before the rest of the band crashes in with some of the heaviest moments ever seen in the Bottom Bracket catalog. For those wondering if Bottom Bracket can still surprise you even after the near perfection they have already delivered in this record, “Camouflage” dares you to take that bet.

6. Swivel

In “Swivel,” we find Cannamela and his guitar alone in the booth. The song, restrained and haunting, finds Cannamela asking, “Oh, how do I do better?” The repetition of the line echoes as a reminder that Cannamela and company are constantly aware of the necessity to grow and, furthermore, how their past has shaped their growth so far. As we move towards the end of the track, a chorus of voices sings, “My bottom bracket won’t stop me / From riding all the way to your house” as the track finds its close, a nod to the band's roots and song “Bottom Bracket” from their debut EP, Dreamland. 

7. Unsavory

“Unsavory” was the record’s first single and the introduction to this new era of Bottom Bracket. Listeners are instantly met with insanely bright guitars and drums and are then pushed right into one of the catchiest riffs in human history. The choice to have “Unsavory” as the lead single is a fitting one, given that it chronicles the inciting incident for many of the themes and lyrics found throughout the rest of the record.

“This song is about the day the final straw was reached,” recounts Cannamela. “I wish I had been more vocal when something seemed off, but the picture wasn’t always clear to me.” “Unsavory” is the perfect word to capture the feeling when someone close to you is revealed to be someone they are not. “How do we find a way past this?” Cannamela asks before lamenting, “All the warning signs, how could I ever have missed this? / How could I ever have missed this?” But the truth is, sometimes we’re so close to the people we love that we DO miss some of the darker moves they make. The question we are then faced with is, what do we do next? For Cannamela, he says, “That was the moment our friendship ended, at least from how things went down from that point on.”

8. IKYKWIM (I Know You Know What I Mean)

“IKYKWIM” leans into Bottom Bracket’s poppier sounds and bouncier chords, with Recio’s infectious bassline as the driving spine of the beat. Tongue-in-cheek, the track’s lighthearted energy serves as the perfect foil for Cannamela to hit the soft implications of “I know you know what I mean.” Filled with the tension of knowing something is wrong but being reassured otherwise, Cannamela calls out the absurdity of it all with levity in saying, “There’s a few holes forming / In your Swiss cheese of a story” to the track's subject. And again, the repeated line of the song’s namesake echoes the frustration of unspoken truths after Cannamela has already begun putting the pieces together. The track, punchy, quick, and packed with urgency, captures the unease of discovering cracks in the façade of a friendship, finding its standout two-thirds of the way through with one of the sauciest solos found on the record. 

9. Cellar Doors

“This whole song is a love letter to the house that we used to live in Springfield; we spent four years in this cruddy house, but we practiced in the basement, even ran a house venue out of it too,” says Cannamela about the penultimate track, “Cellar Door.” This love letter calls back to many moments in Bottom Bracket’s history, with references to “Phantom,” “Failures,” and “Sun Singer.” The line, "I spent so many nights alone," captures the juxtaposition between nostalgia and moving on, a recognition of isolation and growth. Our histories shape us in ways we cannot imagine sometimes and in ways we don’t always get to see while they happen. 

To be able to chronicle these moments is a privilege, but to keep them “delicate, preserved, like a memorial display” also comes at the price of immortalizing the pain that came with those times. “All of I Don’t Care Enough to Stay and A Figure In Armor were written in this house,” says Cannamela, as well as some of the songs on this record here. For a musician, the house they live in is often the epicenter of where so many stories are born. For Cannamela, this is no exception.

10. A Confrontation

Our final track is the result of “a bomb that just keeps ticking down time,” the guitars and drums frantically moving us through the song. As their finale, the trio brings this record to a gallop with “A Confrontation,” the oldest song on the record, according to Cannamela. “I don’t quite relate to the lyrics anymore, but it was [about] a particularly bad fight,” he says. “At the time, it weighed on me heavily… I’m sure I didn’t handle things well then, either.”

While plenty of external exploration occurs throughout this record, the band is unafraid to look internally. Throughout this track and all that came before, Cannamela displays apparent dissatisfaction and frustration with his place in these situations. Regardless, the only option is to lay it all out on paper like Bottom Bracket did throughout this album. With a sonic callback to “A Condemnation” in the form of the lead riff, Bottom Bracket ties the record to a close by saying that where we are is a snapshot of where we’ve been. 

Final Thoughts on I'm So Afraid of Where

I'm So Afraid of Where is Bottom Bracket at their most vulnerable, most raw, and most masterful. This is not just an album: it is a memorial of relationships we must let go of and a celebration of the community that keeps us whole. Recorded by Andrei Milosevic and Tyler Floyd, mixed and edited by Tyler Floyd, and mastered by Adam Cichocki, the love and care put into making this album is apparent. The result of all these efforts is a deeply affecting album that feels both personal and universal. The future, for anyone, is a terrifying unknown — for Bottom Bracket, I am not afraid of where they will be once this gift of an album is out in the world.

Nishat is a writer, Pokémon addict, Fortnite fiend, and lead singer of tenmonthsummer, a lakeshore emo band from Chicago. You can learn more about his writing and work at nishatahmed.com, catch him streaming on twitch.tv/thenishfish, and find him yapping on Twitter and IG for the band at twitter.com/tenmosummerband and instagram.com/tenmonthsummerband respectively.

The Many Shades of Fiji Blue: An Interview with Indie Pop’s Bittersweet Optimist 

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Photo by David Williams

Trevor Dering wants you to cry while dancing in the club. The Los Angles-via-Phoenix singer-songwriter who performs under the name Fiji Blue has carved out quite the niche for himself with downtrodden lyrics over up-tempo, buttery-smooth production. Imagine if Bon Iver crooned over songs meant for Harry Styles. The mixture of melancholy and jovial emotions creates a moody-yet-pleasant ambiance. It’s the rare type you can listen to if you’re depressed, where you don’t feel like you’re slipping into an abyss.

This year, pop music has been rejuvenated with newer stars shining quicker and brighter than ever before. In a stream-heavy world, artists can be spun up through advantageous avenues online, specifically TikTok or Instagram, where you can go from obscurity to instantaneous fame in a matter of months. Dering experienced this firsthand when Jungkook of the mega global superpower boy band BTS gave him a co-sign on Instagram for the sunkissed synth-laden single “It Takes Two.” From that point, Fiji Blue was suddenly elevated from a bedroom pop artist to a known quantity worldwide. Dering has since been featured on Spotify’s New Music Friday and on the music publication Ones To Watch, amassing millions of streams without even releasing a debut album.

Now, Dering is ready for his debut this winter with Glide, which will be released on December 13th. The different hues coming from Fiji Blue sonically on Glide are a mixture of swirling pop, house, easy-listening, and R&B. Introductory single, the refreshingly warm “Peppermint,” has a familiar sound that is simultaneously both aromatic and subtly sweet. The track is dedicated to his wife; the two got married earlier this year, and now the song stands as a celebration of their love. This is music with a universal appeal for all occasions, whether that’s a car ride down the Malibu Beach freeway, walking around your local grocery store, or even doing chores around the house. The rich vibey production combined with the earwormy hooks from Dering gives off a feeling that it’s only a matter of time before another mainstream jump. 

I chatted with Dering this summer and photographed his Chicago show. Read our conversation below and check out the gallery of photos of Fiji Blue performing. 

SWIM: Who were some of your favorite musicians growing up? Did you try to emulate any of them?

DERING: I grew up listening to a ton of classic rock on long car rides with my dad, but I quickly fell in love with the blues once I heard a Stevie Ray Vaughn song. Soon after, I discovered John Mayer & fell in love with the art of songwriting. John has been a huge, huge inspiration for me since I first picked up the guitar.

SWIM: Is there a specific moment in your life that you can remember that convinced you to pursue music?

DERING: I remember very specifically, at the age of 15, my mother showed me the song “In Your Atmosphere” by John Mayer, and it changed my life. I felt something I couldn’t quite explain that drove me to want to pursue story-telling and music at that instant.

SWIM: You have a sizable following both online and monthly streaming numbers (over 1.2 million monthly on Spotify) without releasing a full-length album. What is it about your music that you think connects with so many people?

DERING: I’m beyond grateful my music has been able to connect with so many people, close and far. I’m not sure if I can pinpoint an exact reason, but I’d like to believe it’s because people can relate to the stories of love and heartbreak I’m trying to tell. Life and love has its ups and downs. I’ve had my share of both, and I find peace in knowing my music has broken through enough to help anyone going through it in life.

Photo by David Williams

SWIM: You announced your debut album will be called Glide. What do you want listeners to take away from your debut?

DERING: I hope listeners fall in love with the story of “Glide.” It’s filled with some of the happiest moments of my life and some of the lowest. I got married during the creation of this album while also going through moments of heartache in creative relationships. This album was written to give life to that moment of “Glide” where you’re moments from landing & there’s nothing you can do but hope everything is going to work out.

SWIM: You chose the song “Peppermint” as the first single from the album. What was your thought process when selecting this song as the first taste of the album?

DERING: To me, “Peppermint” felt like falling in love. I wanted to come back with a song that gave me the biggest smile, and to me, that was this song. It tells the story of the effortless love I feel for my partner, Natasha. The world also needs more happy songs, which I struggle to write, unfortunately!

SWIM: Congratulations on recently getting married! Your lyrics are mostly described as “melancholy yet optimistic.” Can we expect similar themes on the album, or will you include more topics about love and marriage?

DERING: Thank you so much. Marriage has definitely shifted my perspective on life in a very short time, but I feel like I’ve also been married to Natasha since the first day I met her. I feel like my “sad yet happy” viewpoint will always be a part of my writing style, yet I hope to branch deeper into both places individually as I venture further into life’s highs and lows.

SWIM: Any final words before we sign off?

DERING: I’m just really excited and ready for the world to hear about this project.

David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He's also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Heart to Gold – Free Help | Album Review

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Memory Music

The day after the election, the high in New York was 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That was the forecast regardless of who won. The highs will continue to rise each winter regardless of which party is in power. The hopes you have for the future will stay in your mind, the work you do to improve the world will continue, and the things you love you will continue to do regardless of the temperature and political situation. Why? 

On Heart to Gold’s third LP, Free Help, they grapple with how to confront that march to the inevitable. Throughout the record, Whiteoak ping-pongs between despondence and exuberance. The stunning opener, “Surrounded,” encapsulates both feelings as Whiteoak sings with his back to the corner as enemies and regrets of wasted time and embarrassing memories close in. But the moment you hear the “oohs” on the chorus, you can’t help but grin. “Surrounded” is like the best Menzingers songs, filled with disdain at having to do this all over a-fucking-gain, but you hope for remission as you push your best friend in the pit and scream along.

Listening to Free Help has made me think about de-transitioning. When Whiteoak sings “I have been suffering for too long” on mid-album highlight, “Belonging,” it calls to mind when a kid at work tells me I can’t be a girl because I look like a boy or that my voice is too deep for a girl. When I see my mom still has me listed as my dead name on her phone. I ask myself what this is all for? Why do I suffer these indignities when it would be easier to return to the closet? I’m tired of explaining my existence. What stops me is remembering the spiritual death of the closet. I suffered through that too long to give up the flush of euphoria I feel when I try on the new dress I bought for my birthday, the community I’ve found who love and understand me, and the intimacy I’ve longed desired with female friends over the dejected feeling that comes from others being indecent. I may not belong in others’ expectations of the world, but I belong in the world I’m building. It’s all there in the pre-chorus for “Can’t Feel Me” when Whiteoak sings, “Sometimes the highest highs / at times the lowest lows.” Those are the breaks.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been finding comfort in the transition from “Pandora” to “Blow Up The Spot.” The former track, full of space and meditative lyrics, is an ode to being uncomfortable, existing in the human position of struggle. America conditions us to mimic water and find the path of least resistance from cradle to grave, but the beauty of life is in the uncertainties, in the closet doors opened. When the latter track explodes out of the lingering outro of “Pandora,” I want to throw myself around the room screaming along. I feel such a sense of relief when the bridge of “Blow Up The Spot” comes in after a brief pause. It’s simply the best feeling an indie rock song could give today. 

I was reading an interview with the novelist Sally Rooney in the New York Times, where she was asked explicitly about how to live a meaningful life in the face of historical crises like the genocide in Gaza. Listening to Free Help, I was reminded of this line she said: “I suppose I tell myself that in the midst of all of this, people need not become so incredibly overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems that we’re facing as to feel that life itself is no longer meaningful and that there’s no reason to go on.”

Free Help is the sound of looking at the enormity of the problems and refusing to let them win because you can’t let anything steal your joy, your reasons for being, or your hope and will for a better tomorrow. 

Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her burner account on Twitter @Lilymweber.