OH MY MIND EP / OUT NOW
OH MY MIND / VIDEO / OUT NOW
UK & IRELAND HEADLINE TOUR
LISTEN TO THE EP HERE
WATCH THE VIDEO FOR ON MY MIND HERE
Following a wave of highly praised singles over recent months – ‘Don’t Wanna’, ‘Us’, ‘Follow You’, ‘Islands’ and ‘Familiar’ – which have been supported by the likes of Wonderland, Hot Press, Official Charts, Under The Radar and Ones To Watch, Irish indie-pop rockers modernlove. have now delivered their eagerly awaited OH MY MIND EP through Akira Records – home to Phoria, Henry Green, Mt Wolf, Rosey Carney and Shura – showcased by the soaring title track.
As the opener to OH MY MIND, the shimmering title track perfectly reflects the rich and dynamic direction the band have been exploring throughout this new EP. Aiming to highlight mental health struggles in a post-pandemic world, their newest gem is a warm and inviting pop rock delight that builds upon their aesthetic to date and is accompanied by a light-hearted video.
The Oh My Mind EP follows their debut monochrome blue EP, released last September, which saw Modernlove. combine their early work into a statement debut offering. Featuring the singles Liquorice, 2 Missed Calls and lmk (if you wanna see me), they received strong playlist support, landing on New Music Friday UK, Fresh Finds, Alt-Pop, and The Pop List on Spotify and New In Alternative, New Music Daily and Breaking Alternative on Apple Music.
The band also received strong radio support from BBC R1, BBC 6 Music, BBC Ulster, XS Manchester, Across The Line and Radio X; were named as the Official Charts Ones To Watch; and featured in the Irish Times 15 Fine Music Acts To Listen To In 2022. Live sessions with BBC Introducing and Seconds Away have also helped to cement their position as one of the most exciting up and coming acts in the country.
OH MY MIND EP / TRACK-BY-TRACK
US
Us is actually the first tune we ever wrote together. It’s such a raw song in every sense of the word: the energy, the lyrics, the production. It’s the blueprint for how we write music as a band. Once we wrote that song something clicked with us. There’s something weirdly romantic about it even though it’s a break-up tune, it’s hopeful and uplifting. That push and pull is something that has come to define our teens and early twenties, and we just love the idea of a raucous crowd singing along even though it’s a sad song.
FOLLOW YOU
Follow You is a love song about the early stages of infatuation in a relationship. It’s about finding yourself in a relationship so intimate that spending each waking moment together still isn’t enough, hence the lyrics “When you fall asleep, I’ll follow you”. Musically, we wanted to write a song that resonated with the nostalgia of those same naive infatuations and took us back to when we first started the band as teenagers finding ourselves as people as well as artists. A simple four chord structure that echoed the likes of Bloc Party, The Cure and New Order. A song that we could fully jam on together and jump around to.
DON’T WANNA
Don’t Wanna is a song about desire. We’ve all had that weird feeling at some point where you can’t decide whether you might be kinda into one of your close mates. It touches on the difficulty of navigating friendships and relationships as a young person when such passionate feelings and sex are involved. We wanted to capture that excitement in the sonics as well; it’s definitely one of our poppiest tunes but it’s still got that rocky edge to it.
ISLANDS
Islands is a classic coming of age story. Trying to cope with the fallout of a family coming apart due to divorce and one’s own romantic relationship coming to an end at the same time. It tells the story of both, blurring them into one at times. The song is about the distances between people in their relationships and how for some, it seems too impossible a task to even try to bridge those gaps. These people are made into ‘islands’ by the oceans they must travel each day to meet and see each other eye to eye. The song explores ways people try to deal with this struggle and this loneliness whether it be drink, drugs or sex but, in the end, it recognises that they are simply in a painful situation that they must accept and let happen as the song ends with the repeated words: “It’s coming apart and I can’t face it, I don’t wanna break down, but I can’t take it”.
FAMILIAR
Familiar is a song about seeing an ex for the first time after breaking up. It’s about seeing them from across a bar with somebody else, having moved on with their life and the feelings that moment can evoke. It also explores the idea that we long for something familiar and comforting when we’re not in a very good place in our lives and that an ex can provide a temporary, albeit unhealthy, escape from that loneliness and anxiety. We wanted to reflect that emotional depth in the sonics as well, this is the closest we’ve come to RnB chords on the keys for example. But also not lose that modernlove bounce, it’s a pop song at heart.
OH MY MIND
Oh my mind explores the modern-day neuroses of young people and the mental health challenges brought upon them by pop culture, the internet and most recently, the coronavirus lockdowns. I think we all went a little mad over lockdown and most of this EP was written in that state of social isolation. Without distraction or release from cycles of negative thought you can begin to spiral to the point of derealisation and being in a constant state of panic. But then we kinda juxtaposed that by a brighter and more playful sonic composition. I think as young people, we tend to joke about our mental health as a way of relating to one another and not feeling so alone in all of it. So it felt natural to write a poppy, upbeat song about such dark themes rather than treating them with a forced solemnity and formality.
TAKE MY HEAD
Take my head explores the anxiety that comes with any sort of big change in life. The narrative describes being unable to accept that things are going to be different and the dread and uncertainty of what is to come next. It’s kind of came about as we began to get back to normal life after covid and feeling ill equipped to handle it after two years of being locked away in isolation. It’s a lament for the way things once were. Sonically we leaned into our more electronic and garage inspirations. We owe the vibe and direction in production to the likes of James Blake and John Hopkins.
Modernlove. will embark on their first UK and Ireland headline tour in November. Demand for these shows has been so overwhelming that the band have now added a second London date, with their Manchester date, which had already been upgraded, also now sold out. Tickets are available from: https://music.akirarecords.com/modernlovetour
