Fresh from the release of his acclaimed debut album Nervous At Night on Saddest Factory, the ever-prodigious Charlie Hickey returns today with ‘Choir Song (I Feel Dumb) 2.0’, a reimagining of one of the understated highlights from the album, which has already received acclaim from the likes of The Sunday Times, i-D, DIY, NPR, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Dork, The Line of Best Fit and more.
‘Choir Song (I Feel Dumb) 2.0’ replaces the chiming pianos that introduce the original, instead leading with chugging guitars that quickly transport the song into a series of cathartic releases, underpinned by lofty electronics that eventually give way to blasts of synth and pitch-shifted vocals that shoot for the sky.
Speaking of the track, Hickey offers: “There have been many iterations of this song since we wrote it. This one came before the current version and was almost the album version. Everyone we played it for either loved it or hated it, which means to me that we succeeded at something. We indulged our love for hyper-pop and glossy, commercial emo and ended up making something that sounds nothing like any of those things! I like that the album version really brings out the sadness of the song and this version brings out the teeth of it a bit more. At this point, I couldn’t tell you which is the definitive version and which is the ‘remix’. That’s for you to decide now!”
Word of ‘Choir Song (I Feel Dumb) 2.0’ is accompanied by the news that alongside upcoming festival appearances at Latitude and both Pitchfork London and Paris, Hickey will be opening for Saddest Factory label boss Phoebe Bridgers at London’s o2 Brixton Academy on July 28th. It continues what’s been a remarkable year on the live circuit for Hickey, having already made debut appearances at both SXSW and The Great Escape, completed his first ever bi-coastal US tour in support of Wolf Alice and Lucius and recently opened for labelmates MUNA at a sold-out London show.
Nervous At Night is a gorgeous, 11-track record that finds Hickey detailing life’s graceless passage between teenage years and adulthood, and all of the noise that permeates. Hickey has always navigated the intricacies of life through a musical lens, both as a child of two musicians and as an artist who has surrounded himself with talented peers. “It feels almost too good to be true,” Hickey says of the small crew of friends that assisted him on the record – label boss and childhood friend Phoebe Bridgers, producer Marshall Vore, and fellow musicians Harrison Whitford, Christian Lee Hutson and Mason Stoops who are featured on the album. With all of the talent surrounding him, it’s Hickey’s remarkable voice, masterful songwriting and relatable storytelling that shine through on Nervous At Night.
Buy Nervous At Night here: https://charliehickey.saddestrec.co/nervous-at-night
Charlie Hickey – Nervous At Night // Saddest Factory – Out Now
1. Dandelions
2. Gold Line
3. Mid Air
4. Thirteen
5. Missing Years
6. Every Time I Think
7. Nervous At Night
8. Springbreaker
9. Choir Song (I Feel Dumb)
10. Month of September
11. Planet With Water
For more on Charlie Hickey, head to: www.charliehickey.com
More about Nervous At Night:
Charlie Hickey’s debut album, Nervous At Night, began with a journey. Having grown up in Pasadena, in the quiet shadow of downtown LA, Hickey moved away to college at the same time that he got more serious about music, and found himself moving back and forth between his hometown and his newfound independence to play around with song ideas and demos with his friend and collaborator Marshall Vore. These two worlds reveal themselves in numerous forms across Nervous At Night.
Born into a musical family, as a child Hickey would obsessively watch videos of his parents on tour with their old band Uma, learning all the lyrics that he loved but didn’t understand. This introduction to music and songwriting sowed a seed, and Hickey was soon writing songs of his own, playing on the guitars that lay around him and singing about the little details of his school days. He continued this throughout his teen years, and the worlds he conjured becoming an outlet for his growing anxieties, which Hickey now understands to be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. “It gave me a safe place to let my mind run wild and explore all its little corners,” he says. “I still struggle with my mind but music has really made me a happier person.”
Nervous At Night shifts between quiet, heavy-hearted ballads and gleaming, hook-laden tracks. While Hickey calls the album a pop record, he admits that sonically it moves in many directions, an amalgamation of his love for folk singers of yesteryear and more contemporary peers, from Taylor Swift and The 1975, to Elliott Smith, to Conor Oberst. Like those heroes, Hickey shares a clarity in his songs that is specific in its songwriting but still inviting, open and generous.
Across the album, he lays out those fears, frustrations, and faith in friendships in richly detailed ways. The topsy-turvy narrative was only noticed by Hickey in hindsight when he stepped back to view this collection of songs as one whole body of work. “I only realized the theme in retrospect because they were written over a really long period of time,” he explains. “But it is true that there’s a thread of growing up running through it, also transitioning into adulthood and having your inner child still be a very big part of you.”
This age of disconnection leaves its mark across Nervous At Night. Hickey admits that he often finds himself applying the lens of nostalgia to events as they happen, occasionally viewing the meaningful moments of his life as an outsider, acutely aware of how fleeting such sweetness can be. But there is community here too, a genuine sense of connection that holds Nervous At Night in place. Hickey grew up in the same neighbourhood as Phoebe Bridgers, the two becoming close friends from the age of thirteen, and he says that he views his songs as taking place in such a suburb, one similar to the dream-like safe-haven of Pasadena.
Nervous At Night comes alive in its juxtapositions, chronicling the constant push and pull of life, both its stagnancy and motion in refreshing and honest ways. Chiefly though, this is an album about connection, how even through those struggles we rely on the people around us to keep moving forwards. “I’d like to write songs that are for everyone, that let people into my inner world while also hopefully making people feel less alone on their own. I hope that these songs can be there for somebody the way my favourite songs have been for me.”
