Girlpuppy – announces headline show at The Workman’s Cellar, Dublin

It seems like a contradiction coming from Becca Harvey, a singer and songwriter whose lyrics’ undisguised sentimentality and witty self-effacement have garnered quickellacclaim for her project girlpuppy. But on “Permanent State,” the closing track of her debut full-length When I’m Alone, Harvey sings: “I hate writing songs.” Since the Atlanta-based project’s debut in 2020, Harvey’s applied her emotional and vocal versatility to whatever genre she sees most fit for girlpuppy to explore. First came the lo-fi guitar pop of introductory single “For You”; next, the self-described “sad girl” indie of 2021’s Swan, a collaboration with producer Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers, Ada Lea) that drew praise from the likes of NPR and Nylon; “I Miss When I Smelled Like You,” girlpuppy’s foray into ’70s-indebted arena pop, saw her team up with Doug Schadt (Maggie Rogers, Claud) on a breezily yearning break up jam. Harvey has deep gratitude for her career recording and touring including with some of her favorite artists, The Districts and Matt Maltese. But it’s not always light work parsing through the feelings that lead to heavy-hitting songwriting. “It’s hard to relive something bad that’s happened to you, and write it in a way that sounds beautiful and clever,” Harvey admits. “You want to write about it in a way that no one’s ever heard of before.” This strive for self-betterment is at the core of When I’m Alone, a record which centers Harvey’s dreamy vocals in intricate soundscapes, all while confronting the introspective thoughts she’s experienced in isolation.

In advance of recording girlpuppy’s first album, Harvey and collaborator John Michael Young went in for a trial session at local studio Standard Electric. There, they worked on “Teenage Dream,” a fingerpicked, mid-tempo groover on which Harvey gracefully navigates the memorable opening line: “Everytime I’m in the bathroom / I pray that I’ll die like Elvis […] with my hair done and all my clothes still on.” Of the session, Harvey says: “I really liked it, but I love to travel to make music. I knew I couldn’t do it in Atlanta.” A backstage hang with Alex G after girlpuppy’s Riot Fest set introduced Harvey and Young to guitarist Sam Acchione, whose production work she’d admired on Tomberlin’s Projections EP. That same weekend, they met engineer and mixer Henry Stoehr of the Chicago band Slow Pulp, another of Harvey’s contemporary favorites. The stars aligned for the four musicians to work together, and not only due to shared musical interests like Big Thief and Snail Mail. “I don’t think I’d ever felt more heard or seen,” says Harvey of her working relationship with Acchione and Stoehr. “Sam and Henry made me feel very secure in every decision we made.” In December of that year, Harvey flew to Philly for a short session at Hidden Fortress, resulting in some of the album’s highlights — including “Destroyer,” a galloping, kick drum-driven anthem inspired by the novel

Daisy Jones & the Six which voices anxiety over the unintended trajectories of decision making. While the warehouse studio was special, it was also freezing, and ultimately not the right ambience for the full session. girlpuppy and team eventually decamped to an atmospheric mountainside cabin in hyper-rural Thorn Hill, Tennessee, where they wrote and recorded for three weeks in February 2022.

Girlpuppy announces headline show at The Workman’s Cellar, Dublin

Thursday, 21st May 2025

Tickets €16.65 plus booking fee on sale Friday 4th April at 10am from singularartists.ie