Recent Dead Oceans signee Fenne Lily announced her first album for the label, Breach, last month. Today, she offers another preview of the upcoming release with “Berlin.” It’s a mid-tempo, shoegaze-borrowing track that comes from a withdrawn place, as Fenne Lily repeats, “It’s not hard to be alone anymore.”
She also shared an animated lyric video, and she said of both the song and the visual:
“When I was 21 I spent a month alone in Berlin. While I was there, I recorded everything I did as a voice note or in a sketchbook, even if it was boring. On the plane ride home, my phone packed up and I lost all my song ideas from my trip. Initially, it felt as though I’d lost a part of my brain, but gradually pieces started to come back to me. To help the remembering process, I tried to picture all the things that surrounded me during my time alone in Berlin. The more I pictured these mundane objects, the more lost ideas I could remember. This song was one of these ideas. When it came to deciding on a video for it, I’d recently had a dream about an illustrated man eating his own brain for breakfast and, on the same day, was introduced to [Henry Dunbar’s] animated short film ‘Pollock’. His work and my dream were impossible to ignore in their similarities and so this video was born. It reflects both the comfort and claustrophobia of the everyday, and how company can be found in everything when you’re left with only yourself and an alien place. The umbrella made me cry – I kind of hope it helps you do the same.”
She also previously said of Breach, “That feels like what I was doing in this record; I was breaking through a wall that I built for myself, keeping myself safe, and dealing with the downside of feeling lonely and alone. I realized that I am comfortable in myself, and I don’t need to fixate on relationships to make myself feel like I have something to talk about. I felt like I broke through a mental barrier in that respect.”
Watch the “Berlin” video above.
Breach is out 9/18 via Dead Oceans. Pre-order it here.
