Bnny — the Chicago band fronted by Jessica Viscius — is an “indie scene staple” (The FADER). The quintet presents the double single ‘Something Blue/Changes‘ from their forthcoming album, One Million Love Songs, out April 5th via Fire Talk Records. Following lead singles ‘Good Stuff‘, a “hopeful heartbreaker” (Gorilla vs. Bear) and ‘Crazy, Baby‘, ‘Something Blue’ is about the struggle of escaping your past. The track rises, sighs, and rests in its own tension, with Viscius’ voice calm with a self-assured form of acceptance.
On ‘Changes’, she hangs a simple lyric (“It’s the changing of the seasons”) on a straightforward melody like a sheet being draped over a clothesline, channeling Mazzy Star and mimicking the soft, gauzy, fresh feeling of realising you’re able to begin it all again with a new person: “new memories / new feelings / new hope / and new reasons.” “So happy I could scream,” she sings, and then she does.
There are one million ways to approach love, one million ways to experience love, one million ways in which love shapes both the course of our lives and how we choose to navigate that course. Many of the tracks across One Million Love Songs take it as a given that love will end. Viscius is looking love square in its many eyes and describing, with self-awareness and humour, not only what she sees, but what it makes her feel.
Produced by Viscius and recorded at Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios with Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo de Souza), One Million Love Songs is a brighter, fuller record that shows Viscius’ immense growth as an arranger and artist. It follows Bnny’s “spare and grieving” (New York Times) debut album, Everything, a raw and honest document whose songs seemed to emanate from Viscius like a personal climate. And while those songs have not lost an ounce of their power, performing them every night live across the US and Europe made for a new and different kind of exhaustion. It’s hard to access your grief all the time; it’s even harder to share it. “I wanted to make songs that are exciting to play—songs that make me feel happy,” Viscius says. “This album is about love after loss, getting older, and just trying to have fun with a broken heart.”
1. Missing
2. Good Stuff
3. Crazy, Baby
4. Something Blue
5. Screaming, Dreaming
6. Sweet
7. Nothing Lasts
8. Rainbow
9. Changes
10. Get It Right
11. No One
Deep romantic love, breathy lust, generous self-love—and their opposites, self-loathing, resentment, disappointment—all make appearances on One Million Love Songs. Bnny will perform a hometown show at The Empty Bottle on Friday, April 19th along with a EU/UK tour – including a stop-off at The Great Escape – and a performance at Baby’s All Right in New York City.
Tour dates:
Apr 19th | Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle
May 8th | Luxembourg, LU – Rotondes
May 9th | Antwerp, BE – Trix Cafe
May 11th | Hamburg, DE – Molotow
May 12th | Rotterdam, NL – Rotown
May 14th | London, UK – Paper Dress Vintage
May 15th | Southampton, UK – Heartbreakers
May 17th | Brighton, UK – The Great Escape
May 18th | Manchester, UK – Yes (Moodswings)
May 20th | Paris, FR – Supersonic
Jun 13th | Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right
Tickets are on sale now here.
Photo credit – Alexa Viscius