Released with the good folks at Totally Real Records, the album represents both a new beginning and a return to the past. As we wrote about the single of the same name, Real Love sees Beat Radio founding member Phil Jimenez return to the fold for the first time since 2006, working along with Kathryn Froggatt to develop “skeletal” demos into “ornate indie rock gems” (to quote Zach Schonfeld’s liner notes). Be it with banjos, saxophone, violin or fine layered harmonies, the pair help to elevate the tracks into the richest and most detailed Beat Radio songs to date, all while retaining the distinctively earnest tone which has long marked the project.

So in that manner, Real Love is perhaps not so much a new beginning as a distillation of the Beat Radio spirit. A new attempt to say the things which need saying. One with extra help, further wisdom, and a clearer sense of what’s important. “There was nothing to hold back anymore,” Sendrowitz explains. “This whole record just feels like the record I was working towards my whole musical career. I went all in emotionally in a deeper way than I was capable of before.”

Today sees the release of the album’s lead single, ‘Family Name’. The keystone of a record which faces up to the difficulties of living and loving across time, confronting loss in its various guises and being open about the significant work required to sustain relationships. The song places Sendrowitz’s struggles into a wider context of intergenerational trauma, probing into some of the most tender areas in order to address the wound. In doing so, it comes to represent the newly unguarded tone of Real Love. Where honesty and acceptance are a mode of healing, and love is a tenacious thing.

I’ll take my time
as the hour gets late
survive this loss
accept my fate
rise up again

Check out the video below, with videography and direction by Mary Kate Gilroy and edited by Bryan Bruchman:

Real Love is out on 21st October via Totally Real Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Photos by Mary Kate Gilroy

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Today, we’re delighted to be able to share a brand new Beat Radio track. The first of a series of singles to be released this autumn ahead of a new full-length album next year, ‘Real Love’ is a continuation of the aforementioned spirit, recommitting to the oldest, most cherished bonds even in the face of struggle and pain. As Sendrowitz puts it, the song concerns “hard work in relationships, committing to moving through the hard times, and grieving over the loss of the versions of yourselves that no longer exist.”

The track includes appearances from ex-Beat Radio member Phil Jimenez and Kathryn Froggatt, the latter lending vocals that help develop the trademark Beat Radio sincerity, and imbue the sound with an urgent emotion. The result is a song that transforms mourning into action, nostalgia into hope. A moment of clear-eyed clarity that sees through the pre- and misconceptions about who we were and who we wanted to be. People change with time, but their relationship need not. For love is a malleable thing, it just takes a little working.

we were so young then
we didn’t know better
maybe there’s still time
build a new dream together
we’ve got a real love
sometimes it ain’t enough
no matter what it takes
i’m never giving up

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Everyone I Know, Just Holding On is very much a product of the conditions in which it formed, on levels both personal and political. Darcy describes how he and Sendrowitz often found themselves discussing dreams not yet realised, actions still to be taken, the unerring tick of time squeezing possibilities. In the face of such pressure, it is easy to throw in the towel. But the record is a call-to-arms against such thinking, a reminder that there is always time to act, to work and fight to make real what feels right.

The cover shows Sendrowitz and his friends on a beach in Montauk, gathered to celebrate his fortieth birthday in 2018 in a country slowly coming to terms with the cultural fight on its hands. “Forty is a benchmark, an over / under,” Darcy continues. “A wrecking ball had recently touched down. That time in Montauk felt like a crossroads. A beach town in winter. Brian and I made a tacit pact—our lives were decidedly still in front of us. Radio daydreams never end.”

Beat Radio’s distinctively hopeful tone is clear from the opening track, ‘Alchemy’. “I know I haven’t been here / and it’s been a hard year / but I’ve got faith in the future,” Sendrowitz sings. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the light / But we’ve still got time to make it right.” If Take It Forever signaled a turn away from the nostalgic, fresh-faced angst of some of the early releases, Everyone I Know, Just Holding On realises the change completely. ‘There’s a Darkness’ consolidates the power of small scale humanity against the mystifying cruelty of the world, while the undeniable brightness of the title track belies the insidious doubt of the lyrics.

Snake in the grass, wolf at the door
We’ve made it through hard times before
It’s getting dark and our dreams are gone
Everyone I know, just holding on

There’s a paternal steadiness to ‘Song for Jackson,’ as though in the aftermath of the previous track lies not surrender but hard-won wisdom, a reflective calm, the ability to sit with the trouble in the world for the benefit of others. The track is a great representation of the record’s focus, recognising the ubiquity of confusion and dissatisfaction and widening the lens beyond one’s own concerns, helping both others and yourself.

Everyone I Know, Just Holding On is out now and you can get it from the Beat Radio Bandcamp page.

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Brian Sendrowitz’s Beat Radio, an act I previously described as “a band formed upon the notion of art as an undying passion” have always challenged that notion in some way, crafting songs which elevate what could be mistaken for small, mundane things to importance. As we wrote in a preview post back in December:

“[Their songs are] living stories boiled down to key scenes, playing out like small movies – packed with love and loss and life, the sorts of things that happen to everyone yet never fail to feel like the most important things in the world”

Beat Radio’s fifth album Take It Forever feels like a culmination of ideas, the product of some long, hard thinking on this topic. The title tracks opens the record with this very much in mind, diving head-on into the oncoming rush of disappointment and frustration and impossible dreams to offer a hand of comfort. “So take it easy,” Sendrowitz urges, “take it forever. I hope this song makes you feel better.” When the song lists NPR and premières and well-paid publicists it’s not some anarcho-punk cheap shot at our consumerist culture, but rather a warning to other artists that such measures of success (and the constant need for validation they bring) will only lead to the liquor cabinet. What’s more, the song isn’t blaming anyone for feeling such a way but rather explaining it, citing our conditioning through the modern fairy-tales of popular culture and self-improvement as the main source of dissatisfaction and hurt.

‘”We take our stories from television
we’re haunted by our own ambition
and no one’s looking out for each other
when everything is a competition

everyone is casting spells
building myths around themselves

and all we want is everything
and all we find is suffering

the point of everything i guess
is “don’t give in to bitterness”’

‘Lost in the World’, which we we lucky enough to première on WTD,  is what we called “an autobiographical song… [which] becomes a call to arms for creative people”. It offers an alternative to the money/fame malaise, a reminder that art can be justified in other ways. ‘Losing Time’ achieves the difficult task of feeling very much of the now without being ham-fisted, weaving modern references into the fabric of the song rather than having them front and centre. “You could open up your heart,” he sings, “to people that you’ve never met. A poet for the modern age, famous on the internet”. The song also opens up the idea of the art-based messages being applicable to life in general, or maybe that art and life are so entwined that they are one and the same. Either way, it wants you to know that disappointment and darkness are temporary, that small joys are abundant and to be celebrated.

“Build it up and watch it all come crashing down
when its over start to build it up again
Even if its not the life you dreamed about
everything you did was worth it in the end

celebrate the things you love
this is where you’re meant to be
try and keep an open heart
dream a little dream of me”

‘Art is a War, There Are Casualties’ attempts to breathe life into the “If I Manage To Reach Just One Person” truism, a wonderful idea that’s been repeated into cliché by false-modesty, and ‘Song for Camden Power’ follows up with a perfect example. As explained in this post over at Impose, the track is written in memory of Beat Radio fan Camden who kept in touch with Sendrowitz over the internet. Sadly, he lost his life too soon in a road traffic accident, and the song is part-elegy, part-celebration of his life, exploring how human connection brings meaning and value to what can otherwise seem a confusing and arbitrary existence. ‘We’ll Be Forgotten’ plays like an explanation for previous strife (“I was just searching for a feeling, something to keep me from unravelling”) and an attempt to come to terms with our relative insignificance, while ‘Dreaming of the West’ details how companionship can relieve the pressure of this in other ways, both in sharing the existential load and helping us forget it entirely:

“We were brightening the corners
we were dreaming of the West
we were moving over mountains
we were fighting loneliness
feeling was our sickness,
feeling nothing was our guilt
I’m a little lost without you
It’s the simple things you miss”

‘Elizabeth’ continues this idea. Part-apology (“I’m a little hard to read, even though I’m easy going”), part-expression of gratitude (“and sometimes I still wonder if I’m still dreaming”), the song is a bona-fide love song, denying emphatically that romance is dead (Sendrowitz met Elizabeth, his wife, in pre-school) and cementing the idea that the philosophies on Take it Forever extend beyond creative circles. ‘I Dreamed The Internet Ended’ barely breaks the one minute mark, before ‘Invisible Cities’ closes the album, a rousing, stripped-back love letter of a song sent from the edge of nothing, a realisation or admittance that we cannot do it alone, one final insistence that human connection makes it all worthwhile.

“I was in the basement of a bar
I was at the end of a subway car
I was falling asleep on a silver cloud
I was wondering where you are now
And I’m out on the edge of the world
Waiting for you
Looking out for your love”

With a large dose of hope and a pervading sense of goodwill, Take It Forever plays like the manifesto of someone who doesn’t know all the answers but finds meaning in asking the questions, the words not of a revolutionary or prophet but an ordinary man striving to make life extraordinary, just as it should be.

Take It Forever was release on Sendrowitz’s own Awkward For Life Records and you can buy it now from the Beat Radio Bandcamp page.

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But while Sendrowitz has often written relatable music, it’s not often he has turned the light on his own life. However, new album Take It Forever could see this change, taking the chance to explore what it means to be a musician and an artist in our current society. We’re delighted to bring you a premiere of the second track ‘Lost in the World’, what is possibly Beat Radio’s most direct writing to date. An autobiographical song, it starts by detailing his relationship with music and writing (in what could quite easily be taken as a metaphor for life itself) and becomes a call to arms for creative people, playing out as an anthem of advice and encouragement complete with a rather triumphant sound:

“So we never got famous
and we never left home
there were times when I was lonely
I was never alone
and all my friends got tired
everybody moves on
I always seemed to find a reason and
I kept singing songs”

If the other song titles are anything to go by (‘Art is a War, There are Casualties’, ‘I Dreamed the Internet Ended’) Take It Forever will continue this exploration of creating music/art in modern society, a theme clearly important to Sendrowitz. Beat Radio are a band formed upon the notion of art as an undying passion, one which must survive and persevere on the thin side of real life. Jobs, partners, children… all of these things are realities for the contemporary artist, whether it sits nicely with your romantic ideals or not, and an ability (or otherwise) to pursue art as your primary method of income has never been further from a fair yardstick as to the quality and value of your work. Indeed, Sendrowitz took this a step further in an interview we did in 2013:

“Whenever I put pressure on music to have it be something that could take the place of my day job, it always seems to take the joy out of it“

And it makes sense. I mean, just listen to a Beat Radio song. It comes through. Sendrowitz makes music because he is driven to do so, by himself and no-one else. Because it makes him happy. Because it makes him feel alive. What could be a more pure motivation than that? Have a listen to ‘Lost in the World’ below and see what I mean:

P.S. Beat Radio have a great song on our compilation tape in aid of global literacy. Why not grab yourself one?

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Brian Sendrowitz of Beat Radio (who we have written about quite a few times) is working to put out more music on his label Awkward for Life Records this year, and this split 7″ with Kid in the Attic is the first to be released.

Kid in the Attic start things off with ‘Roles Reversed,’ a charged song of passion and wistful angst with lead Maia Macdonald’s intimate vocals reminiscent of Stars. Confronting relationships and self in all of their uncertainty, the song ditches the pop romance of True and Eternal Love in favour of something less clear and more true, emotions that are susceptible to the erosion of time. “This is how change begins” sings Macdonald, “little light little crack in the door gets in”.

Beat Radio’s offering sees Sendrowitz combine rock principles with electronics to create a track that sits somewhere between indie pop/rock and Architecture in Helsinki. Unlike many of his peers, for whom the use of synths is a self-indulgent flourish, Sendrowitz builds the track on his electronics, dropping the guitar and drums to a supporting role. As ever with Beat Radio, the lyrics are impassioned and somehow nostalgic, as if written from some time beyond the event where every circumstance, both good and bad, takes on an endearing glow.

The record is out on the 10th March and you can put your order in via the Awkward for Life Bandcamp page.

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The new album shows some definite changes from past Beat Radio releases. Yes, the music is still gloriously fuzzy and the words thoughtful and heartfelt, but the lyrics appear to deal with a different set of themes, as if Sendrowitz has changed his focus from a rose-tinted past and decided to confront the present. The explanation of the album on the Bandcamp page pretty much confirms this, with him detailing the circumstances under which he wrote the record and sounding very much part of ‘real’ life (with all the tedious and painful worries it brings), saying that the writing process was his way of dealing with the problems he faced.

Hard Times, Go! is doubly refreshing, firstly because it deals with a different aspect of relationships than the usual first love/loss of pop songs, and secondly in that it demonstrates that attentive and poetic lyrics can work in what is essentially catchy indie rock. Beat Radio show that pop music and literate lyrics aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

I think Sendrowitz’s achievement (and it is a large one) is successfully managing to transfer the feeling from his earlier nostalgic releases into a new record which deals with very adult issues. It is easy to write and sing about a sunny past and sound in love with so-called better times, but here he manages to still come across as warm and sincere when dealing with less romantic topics. The album is full of realistic but hopeful (and thus hugely endearing) songs about life. It is a personal record, a brave record that truly wants to let the hard times go. It is a triumph.

Hard Times, Go! is available on Bandcamp in a digital or vinyl, with a variety of nice merch items to get too (totes, tees, beer koozies etc.). Also be sure to check out the Hurricanes EP, a collection of B-sides and covers.

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