I’ve had my heart broken one time and I’ve even broken it myself a couple of times by now, I can tell you that the former hurt way more than the latter.
Maybe because it was first love and young love all wrapped up into one mess of teenage hormones and emotions, or maybe because it’s the one time that I’ve been cheated on and found out about it. That shit hurts. So much so that if I were to take a moment right now, close my eyes and dig down deep under all of the layers of me that I’ve since added like rings on a sequoia tree - one where at about 18 years old a junior tree feller accidentally got started with his chainsaw on the wrong tree, before his foreman scolded him and pointed him to the tree right beside it with a giant X sprayed on its bark - I reckon I’d still find that raw part. Healed but in a way that some nerves remain exposed; brush that scar against a low coffee table and you’ll feel the sting just like the first time.
I was 18 years old when a friend told me that he’d seen my girlfriend kissing in another guys car late at night (after I had dropped her home “to study”). I rejected the claim and told my friend (and myself) that he must have been mistaken when he had thought he had seen and talked to her from a distance of about 2 metres on a well lit road, yes he must have been mistaken. I confronted my girlfriend and she denied it while I drove myself half crazy trying to believe the deception. Twisting reality to make the implausible plausible until one day reality snapped back into place, as it will, and I broke in a whole new way. *Ouch*.
Over the next few months I met up with my ex a few times, she was a wreck of apology and regret as we tried to make sense of what had happened and why. I flirted with the idea of forgiveness and reconciliation but decided that despite it being a lovely idea in theory, fuck no. We stayed separated, I moved to a new life at University in Leeds and it took me years to really trust a partner again. It nagged at me that the gut twisting hurt I had felt proved one thing for sure, it really had been love and I had quickly discarded it at the first true hurdle. A few more years of life experience was teaching me that a love like that wasn’t quite so abundant. If love comes to us quickly and easily in our youth then maybe it can lead us to make an early but fatal misstep and take for granted that it will be just as easy to replace once the boredom sets in. This thought stayed with me through future relationships until eventually one day I met Sula and found a feeling that made memories of that first love appear monochrome in comparison, I’ve been hanging on tight ever since.
For a moment one morning a few years back, lying in a half awake state, I thought back over those loves I’d had, lost and moved on from and I felt myself liberated from any of the baggage I’d been carrying. Closer to healed than ever before I felt myself wonder if, (and hope that) the other halves of those relationships were in a similar place now. Whether they’d wronged me or I’d wronged them in some immature didn’t know anything but thought we knew everything moment, or whether we’d fallen apart due to distance, age or time. I made some mental notes to my subconscious and some physical notes in my phone and within a few months ‘Feathers’ was born to express everything I had felt and more, there was me before Feathers and there was me after Feathers; another musical punctuation mark in my life to serve me for a moment and you forever.
Feathers will be out at midnight wherever you are but if you want to hear it early then follow this link and you can listen right now.
Our fans are our Marketing and PR right now and we appreciate you so much for it! Some ways that you can help with this release… (you’ve been killing it on the previous releases by the way! Clio is by far our most streamed track on Apple Music in the last month!)
Listen (Dont skip)
Add to your own playlists
Share with friends
Use the audio In your reels/tiktoks
all of that helps us reach a larger audience and helps this song get heard! Songs love to be heard. 🪶
So much love,
-Matt (& Ben & Chris)
Feathers - Song Explainer
Feathers is one of the highlights of our debut album for us. It’s a song for the ones that got away, a natural sequel to Hollow in both story and in emotional power. Lyrically the song looks back nostalgically at a lost relationship and wonders if a love that once came easy and early may have been discarded too flippantly. Exploring the idea that first love can give us a false sense of security about the abundance of love in a world where it turns out that real love is in fact far from easy to find, and even more difficult to keep alive over time.
We recorded the song at Unwound Studios in Deptford, London with the producer mixer dream team of Charlie Andrew and Matt Glasbey and then we recorded a live string Quintet at The Pool Studios, which was an absolute dream come true and pinch me moment. We couldn’t be prouder of how it all came together and now we just want the world to hear it!
‘Now that we are older
Do I cross your mind love
Did we take it for granted
When it was so easy to find love
Do you miss the mornings
When the world was younger
and if you found a new love
does your heart ever wonder?’
Updates
In the last month we’ve been busy. Matt played solo acoustic in Glasgow & London supporting Jackson Dean, with Josh Savage in Berlin & a house show in Sibbesse for our fan & Patron Susanne.
Full band we played a house show last weekend in Warwick UK for Lorna and John. Epic house and a lot of fun to do a full and set up in an environment like that.
We hosted our Zoom concert/hang with our patron community last Sunday, doing a grand piano and acoustic guitar set up in the hall 🖤.
Belle Mt. Patreon fan community; It’s been a lot of fun to get to know our fans more closely this year and to share way more of our process. Social media gets in-between us all and we’d love your help to keep on making music ✨
Click the picture below to find out more about our Patreon community👇 if you join now, not only can you jump right in the discord chat and attend the live streams but you get the benefit of all the previous posts we’ve shared, including exclusive live videos, free cover art wallpapers, and previously unheard song demos.
Belle Mt. Patreon membership comes with access to our community discord chat group, a monthly zoom hang concert with our community and other unique tier dependent perks. Most of all it helps us to stay independent and to keep making music🤘
Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. It makes the song feel that much deeper.🪶🖤
About the update: what a special night in Sibbesse! Can't thank you enough, Matt!
Overwhelming emotions - a lifetime of wonderful memories - so much love 🖤🫶🖤