Swedish musician Thea Gustafsson – who writes, records, and produces under the moniker Becky and the Birds – has recently turned a new leaf, entering an era of creative freedom and emotional release with her self-produced debut album, Only Music Makes Me Cry Now, out this Friday 15 November.
Gustafsson has shared one final single from the record, focus track ‘To trust you’, premiered via New Music Daily on Apple Music. The single contributes an air of vulnerability to the LP’s emotively hard-hitting and sonically diverse soundscape through hypnotic looped vocals, stomping 808s, and transportive electric guitar. Says Gustafsson of the track’s thematic content: “This song is for anyone who’s dealing with trust issues. When something has happened that broke your trust for someone, how do you find it again and not let it eat you up forever in every way possible? And most importantly, how do you trust yourself and your intuition without going insane? I wanted the production to work with this concept to soundtrack the madness and darkness that one can get stuck in.”
Becky and the Birds – ‘To Trust You’
Thea Gustafsson began laying the groundwork for her debut Becky and the Birds album in 2021, during a time largely informed by a wide array of sources, including: insight from past collaborations with Dijon, Seinabo Sey, and Lapsley; obscure Bandcamp deep-dives; visits to live sets across London and her native Stockholm; a variety of media fixations (including Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun, and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth); and her emotional processing in the aftermath of a life-altering breakup. Upon returning to the studio, she was motivated to look inward and come to terms everything she was feeling, in addition to returning to her exploratory musical roots with the intention of staying eager, curious, and overall, brave. The resulting innovative, passionate, and vulnerable record — crafted with manipulations of her own voice and sampled audio-bites from her everyday life (including voicemails and natural city noise) — allows listeners to follow her through a time of intense healing and rediscovery, and highlights her distinct style and open-hearted approach more than ever.
Earlier this year, Gustafsson introduced her forthcoming debut record with two previous singles – an ethereal and intimate track entitled ‘When she holds me’, a gorgeous post-breakup lament entitled ‘I made my baby cry’ and a beautifully transportive sound bath of sleek hazy hooks and hypnotic drum tracks entitled ‘Anymore’. Notably, the incomparable Elton John recently played ‘I made my baby cry’ on his Rocket Hour radio show on Apple Music 1, noting that it is the “best record (he’s) heard in a long, long time”. This summer, she additionally began hosting a regular residency on Foundation FM – listen back HERE.
Only Music Makes Me Cry Now is out this Friday, available digitally and on Standard Black vinyl exclusively via the 4AD webstore. Find more information HERE.
Becky and the Birds – Only Music Makes Me Cry Now
15 November 2024
4AD0741
15 November 2024
Tracklisting:
- Star
- Anymore
- To trust you
- I look at the choices I made
- I made my baby cry
- When she holds me
- London is not the same
- Everything
- Elsa 4-ever
- Won’t do that
- Celebrity // don’t leave
- Only music makes me cry now
Praise for Becky and the Birds
“A contemplative and tranquil look at all the complexities that come when you allow yourself to be vulnerable to your own emotions” – Pitchfork
“Resplendent” – Gorilla vs Bear
“A hazy mix of pitched-up vocals, rangey bass, and angelic, compressed woodwind” – The Fader
“You’d do well to find a better debut” – The Line of Best Fit
“Beautifully hypnotic… undeniably breathtaking.” – Variance Magazine
“Stunning, soulful debut submerges us in an atmosphere of layered synths and bird-like vocals that are careful, yet hit with chilling intensity” – Vinyl Me Please
About Becky and the Birds
Thea Gustafsson is a disciplined person by nature, with her formal musical education at Musikmakarna Songwriters Academy of Sweden, later tutelage under Avicii, and avid violin-playing as a child inspiring her unending need for perfectionism. Armed with the skills of pop songcraft and production, Becky and the Birds came to life in 2016 in reaction to frustrating and fruitless encounters with male producers and songwriters, which took form in 2018’s self-released EP Becky and the Birds. With the release of her debut 4AD EP, Trasslig, in 2020, Gustafsson used Becky and the Birds as an outlet for songs about complex women – strong, independent, sensitive and romantic women that are both powerful and vulnerable at the same time and who are ‘trasslig’ (Swedish for ‘entangled, messy, intricate’).
Following this, Gustafsson was nominated in the Breakthrough of the Year category at the Swedish Music Publishers Association Awards, the equivalent of the GRAMMYs for songwriters and composers in Sweden. She has also collaborated with the likes of Dijon, Seinabo Sey, and Lapsley, among others, and in 2021, Gustafsson then released the single ‘With You’ as an exclusive for Spotify’s Studio Oyster. Now, Gustafsson returns with her long-awaited debut LP as Becky and the Birds, entitled Only Music Makes Me Cry Now. With this newest collection of ethereal, erratic, heavy-hitting, and hypnotic tracks, her innovative and distinct style shines in the form of her strongest Becky and the Birds material to date.
BECKY AND THE BIRDS ONLINE
