Many of these tracks were born of anxiety—from my turning to a guitar to externalize (and organize) a sense of chaos that otherwise felt trapped inside me. We recorded the bulk of it with a live band as a means to maintain the raw energy at the center of the record. What results is a time capsule for a year of intense personal expansion in my life—and the layers of warmth, wonder, sensitivity, and sharpness that come with growing.

With the album set for release this April on Audio Antihero, Avery Friedman has unveiled lead single ‘Flowers Fell’ to introduce the style. With a melancholic yet rising sound, the track seems to sit in the interstitial space between trauma and growth. That lull between the ceasing of decline and visible signs of recovery, where improvement exists only as a nascent understanding of the possibilities which lay ahead in time.

The idea behind the song originated during a night-time walk down Greene Avenue in Brooklyn. “I had noticed that the flowers that once lined the branches had been replaced by leaves—seemingly in the blink of an eye,” Friedman says. “I was briefly disappointed until I considered that the petals had made way for something more sustainable—and equally full of life. The song became a meditation on the concept of place—how things of our surroundings like ‘sidewalks,’ and ‘balconies’ and ‘trees,’ can act as fixed backdrops upon which we measure our personal evolutions (and the evolutions of our relationships) across the span of many seasons.”

The flowers fell off when I was asleep
But it’s okay, ‘cause now it’s all green

Design by Alexa Terfloth, photography by Mamie Heldman

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