The Birthday Letters has today revealed his explorative new album ‘Yearning For Vitalists’.
Fusing Indie Folk, Rock and Singer/Songwriter sensibilities, The London via Shropshire artist navigates concepts about the world that can often be overlooked.
Shifting from singalong worthy numbers to introspective laments, The Birthday Letters’ carefully crafted, often ethereal soundscape is a hypnotic journey, and it’ no surprise that he’s drawn comparisons to the likes of Ben Gibbard and Dave Gahan with his soothing vocal deliveries.
Discussing the album further, The Birthday Letters shares:
“In a world where rationalism is king, I think there is space within the culture for mystery and that is what the album title is essentially about. I think the world is yearning for a little more mystery. I want my music to be a space where I can sing about strange ideas. There is so much music out there that deals with exactly the same lyrical territory, so I’m always keen to try something new. I’m sure most people find this pretentious but in fact, I think there’s a lot of value in pretension. All art is a pretension to one degree or another, if we are to interpret pretension as style.
Vitalists were a group of scientists who thought that all beings were governed by a soul or an indeterminate life force separate from the physical world. This idea has, for obvious reasons, completely fallen by the wayside in the modern world and I liked the idea that maybe our current societies, in all their supposedly explainable complexity and dry secular rationalism are missing this mysticism. There is a lot our human brains just aren’t equipped to understand about our world, and we should be open to that. After all, isn’t artistic activity itself one of the greatest mysteries? The first single from the album, ‘The Baby was Born in the Moss’ is about the strangeness of creativity itself and how creation myths guide us through the madness of the world. Other songs, such as ‘Indicator Species’ deal with the tension of us being these incredibly flawed animals in a system that treats us like rational beings, which we are certainly not. That song is really me laughing at my own stupidity.”
Building on previous accolades, ‘Yearning for Vitalists’ sees a well-built artistic progression from The Birthday Letters and is sure to reach new listeners who, like him, question our inherent beliefs about the world.
