Interview: Aquilo’s New Music Aches From the Inside Out

Aquilo’s Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher focus on their achingly stunning new tune “Painkiller,” the pair’s first single in three years’ time – and a breathtakingly tender, dreamy dose of well-worn melancholia, love and ache, empathy and care.

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Stream: “Painkiller” – Aquilo

There’s a magnificence within the ache, an ocean stuffed with rain…

True to kind, Aquilo’s first music in three years’ time aches from the within out.

Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher have at all times had a knack for tugging on the heartstrings; from 2013’s debut singles “You There” and “Calling Me,” to breakout hits like “Silhouette” and “Sorry” and past, the duo – initially from Lancashire, and now primarily based in London – earned the nickname “two unhappy lads from up north” amongst their mates due to their fantastically brooding, emotional, and gut-wrenching songwriting.

Whereas successive studio albums (2018’s ii and 2021’s A Secure Place to Be) discovered Higham and Fletcher increasing past their early sound and outgrowing that stereotype, Aquilo’s roots lie in heartache and heartbreak, and so it feels solely becoming that now, three years on from their final venture, they’d return with a tune stuffed with each love and ache; a soul-stirring piano ballad that opens with the (rhetorical) query, “How lengthy’s too lengthy to attend for somebody?“

A breathtakingly tender and dreamy dose of well-worn melancholia, “Painkiller” dwells in an area of harm and hope as Aquilo supply an outstretched hand to a buddy in want. It’s a tune of understanding and intimate connection; a tune that embodies empathy and care, reminding us how essential it’s to point out up for our family members of their darkest moments; to be the sunshine of their lives when their solar and stars go dim.

“Head up, keep robust, your curtains nonetheless drawn,” Tom Higham sings, coronary heart in hand. “Do what it’s worthwhile to be human.” It’s a message we might all develop from, and one we’ve all wanted to listen to in some unspecified time in the future alongside our journeys. Just like the buddy who is aware of us higher than we all know ourselves, Aquilo’s music wraps itself round us – a comforting blanket for the ears and balm the soul. This tune is, at its core, a painkiller.

Aquilo obtain all this by doing what they do greatest – evoking the rawest moments of our human expertise with love, grace, fragility, ardour, and a mild, understanding contact.

How lengthy’s too lengthy?
To attend for somebody?
Say what you need about it,
if it helps you, it’s purported to.

Exit, get drunk,
Exit, really feel numb,
Keep out all night time if it’s worthwhile to,
Typically all of us do.

Now firmly of their second decade as a band, Aquilo have by no means sounded higher – or extra certain of who they’re on this lifetime. Launched in late Might by way of AWAL, “Painkiller” and its B-side, “Preserve Shifting,” are Aquilo’s first bits of music since their third album, the radiant and wondrous A Secure Place to Be.

“The Aquilo of 2021 imbue their pop songs with a wealthy, cinematic orchestral flare,” Atwood Journal wrote in our final artist characteristic. “Their music is a balanced dose of buoyant, effervescent revelry and intimately indulgent melancholy: It’s a mirrored image of the inquisitive, observant, self-aware males they’ve grown into over these previous eight years. What stays irrevocably true for the band is the vulnerability they bring about to each second of uninhibited self-expression: Completely satisfied or unhappy, uplifting or bittersweet, A Secure Place to Be is definitively “Aquilo,” and the pure subsequent section within the duo’s creative evolution.”

“Painkiller” and “Preserve Shifting” discover Higham and Fletcher persevering with to hone their songwriting craft whereas staying true to themselves and their evolving artistry. Each songs supply perception into what they’ve been as much as over the previous three years, and what their upcoming fourth LP may appear like. Whereas they made “Preserve Shifting” in Nashville with their good buddy and long-term collaborator Jon Inexperienced, “Painkiller” was written with Brit Award winner (and longtime Atwood favourite) Holly Humberstone.

The tune hits its musical and emotional peak in a cathartic, charged climax:

I believe you want a painkiller,
Cos you’ve been sleeping with the lights on,
Take away the ache faster,
And all that shit you’re tryna run from,
I don’t actually find out about you,
I hate to see you black and blue,
I may very well be your painkiller.

The phrases actually do communicate for themselves, but as Aquilo clarify, it took a number of tries for them to understand how to let this observe – and its poignant, heartwarming message – breathe to that fullest potential.

“This tune most likely had 6, 7, or 8 variations,” the band clarify. “Sonically as artists for the final three years we’d been on that journey of looking for what we wished to do, production-wise. Typically you don’t know till you hear it. After concerning the seventh model, we’d began working with a buddy, Eliot James. Eliot has produced a few of our favorite indie information rising up as children, [and] he simply simplified the manufacturing to its naked bones.”

Head up, keep robust,
Your curtains nonetheless drawn,
Do what you want, to be human,
You do you man.

I believe you want a painkiller,
Cos you been sleeping with the lights on,
Takeaway the ache faster,
And all that shit you’re tryna run from,
I don’t actually find out about you,
I hate to see you black and blue,
I may very well be your painkiller.

And thus, the “Painkiller” we hear at the moment lastly noticed the sunshine of day. Aquilo have extra songs coming over the summer time and fall – their subsequent single, “Need You to Need It” (set to launch June 19), is an softly stirring, atmospheric acoustic ballad stuffed with confessional heat and that very same seductive vulnerability that resonates all through “Painkiller” and “Preserve Shifting.”

Atwood Journal lately caught up with Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher to speak about their new music and all these uncooked, visceral feelings they pack into their songs.

“Plenty of these songs are about shut mates, companions, and loss,” the pair clarify.

Learn our full meet up with Aquilo under, and keep tuned for extra to come back from the perennial “unhappy lads,” who’ve as soon as once more proven us how they’ll at all times discover magnificence in even the hardest-to-reach locations.

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Stream: “Painkiller” – Aquilo

CATCHING UP WITH AQUILO

Atwood Journal: Nice to catch up, Aquilo! What is the story behind “Painkiller,” and why did you select to launch this as your first tune in three years?

Aquilo: Sure you too! “Painkiller” is a tune we wrote with Holly Humberstone a number of years in the past. Over the previous couple of years we’ve been writing a number of songs for and with different artists. This was one in every of them.

That is in no way your first tune to come back out of a collaborative session, nevertheless it’s positively cool that you just wrote this one with Holly Humberstone. What was working together with her like? Can you are taking us again to that day(s) within the studio?

Aquilo: Holly is loopy proficient. She was tremendous younger on the time and I’m fairly certain it was one in every of her first ‘classes.’ The truth is, I’m fairly certain she hadn’t truly even launched a tune as Holly Humberstone at this level. She got here in with some chords and an thought and it simply occurred. A couple of hours later we realised we had one thing nice. We wrote a number of songs over two days, however this one stood out.

You have talked about scripting this for a buddy who actually wanted somebody to lean on. With out betraying anybody’s belief, are you able to share extra about the place these feelings you’ve got delivered to life stem from, and what this tune means to you?

Aquilo: Like loads of our inspiration, if it’s not about us… it comes from the individuals round us and what they’re going by means of (or at the least what we really feel they’re going by means of).

Time will slowly unfold you,
Although they advised
you nothing would work,
You’ve been within the deep finish
With out your greatest buddy,
Man I do know it hurts.

I believe you want a painkiller,
Cos you been sleeping with the lights on,
Takeaway the ache faster,
And all that shit you’re tryna run from,
I don’t actually find out about you,
I hate to see you black and blue,
I may very well be your painkiller

Sonically, what have been you going for with this “Painkiller”? What was your imaginative and prescient (or North Star) for it, if any?

Aquilo: This tune most likely had 6, 7, or 8 variations. Sonically as artists for the final 3 years we’d been on that journey of looking for what we wished to do manufacturing clever. Typically you don’t know till you hear it. After concerning the seventh model, we’d began working with a buddy Eliot James. Eliot has produced a few of our favorite indie information rising up as children. Felt like he simply simplified the manufacturing to its naked bones.

“Painkiller” arrives alongside the “B-Aspect” (if we’ve to name it that) “Preserve Shifting” – and I’ve to say, this tune is an absolute dream. What is that this tune about, and why pair it with “Painkiller”?

Aquilo: Haha. Sure, we hate that it’s referred to as a B-side, too. However the label like the thought of calling “Painkiller” the one. We wrote “Preserve Shifting” in Nashville with our good buddy and long-term collaborator Jon Inexperienced. We don’t need to get into specifics on what the tune is about, however once more, a a.

There’s a magnificence within the ache,
An ocean stuffed with rain,

I received chilly,
So I closed an open door,
Now I don’t know what for,

If we hold shifting
Lengthy sufficient to know
the place went we mistaken
hold shifting,

You and I two stars colliding,
Beneath the sound of lightning,
So loud, we don’t say goodbye,

You recognize me, guys – I’ve at all times been drawn to your lyricism. Do you could have any favourite lyrics from these two songs?

Aquilo: Ooooh, actually unsure. Most likely ‘there’s a magnificence within the ache, an ocean stuffed with rain.’ V emo.

What do you’re keen on most about these new songs, and what do you hope listeners take away from them?

Aquilo: Uncertain actually. The songs (to us) really feel a bit of extra mature, perhaps when it comes to manufacturing too. We guess simply making individuals really feel one thing is successful proper?

”Lastly,

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 © Harvey Pearson