𝙊𝙪𝙧’ 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝘽𝙮 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙠’ 𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨’ 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙘.
We love pulling back the curtain on the stories and inspirations behind intriguing new releases. It’s always fascinating to hear the personal anecdotes, creative processes, and little-known tales that shaped each track. These insights not only give us a deeper appreciation for the artistry that goes into crafting these musical gems but also create a sense of connection with the artists.
‘Bring Summer‘ finds Me and My Friends stepping into their most luminous space yet. Instead of chasing a perfect polish, the band leans into something more instinctive and generous: grooves that shimmer, melodies that feel hand-held, and songwriting that looks inward while inviting everyone else onto the dancefloor. The record carries the warmth of a long afternoon with people you trust. Still, underneath the sunlight, there’s a quiet honesty about growing up, holding on, and making peace with the parts of yourself you almost forgot.
What this band does so well is balance joy with depth. Their Highlife sway, folk tenderness, and gently psychedelic touches come wrapped around lyrics that speak to childhood memory, truth-telling, and the small ruptures and repairs that shape us. Nothing here feels forced. Each piece flows into the following like scenes from the same bright day, forming a story about connection and the freedom that arrives when you stop pretending.
Taken as a whole, ‘Bring Summer’ works less like a playlist and more like a shared moment, alive, generous, and full of light.
Without further ado, stream the album and read their exclusive track-by-track guide.
1. Tell Me
‘Tell me about the weather when there’s something that is eating you inside’
Tell Me is about my father’s amazing ability to avoid discussing emotions or uncomfortable topics, a dance enacted with deftness and skill whenever we come to a subject he’d rather not discuss. The song is an expression of my frustration at this defensive wall that is a barrier to connection between us. Musically, the weaving vocal arrangement owes a lot to cellist Emma Coleman’s journey into the world of vocal improvisation and circlesong, while the chorus combines an overdriven guitar riff in the style of Rage Against The Machine with drums that touch on the link between gnawa and Brazilian rhythms. We placed it first as we wanted to make a statement of intent for the new flavours in this album.
2. Happiness
‘The wonder of your words in my ear’
One of the first songs to be written from this set, before the idea of a new album was even discussed, Happiness is a celebration of coming out and living your true sexuality, built on a groove that references both disco and Afrobeat. We had come out of making and touring Before I Saw The Sea, an album that was slow-burning, melancholy and reflective, and there was an energy to create something completely the opposite. Bursting with joyful energy and positivity, the song describes the moment you feel something with another person, and you embrace that feeling and take a step towards a sense of your true self.
3. Listen To The Child
‘Listen to the child
When you’re standing at the water’s edge
Will you look back with regret?
Will you tell the same tale over again?’
In old age, one of the most common regrets is that we didn’t live true to ourselves when we had the chance, and instead followed the expectations of society and family. Listen To The Child is a defiant celebration of the pure authenticity children naturally express. As an artist there is always a nagging feeling that one day you’ll have to stop this larking about and get a proper job, and the song urges us to follow up on the child you have inside, who knows who you really are. Built on a mellow Afro-disco groove that develops into euphoric interlocking melodies, it owes a lot to 70s Ghanaian legend K. Frimpong, who drew on disco and rock as well as pioneering highlife and Afrobeat.
4. Many Miles Away
‘Under golden sun
One day you shall find me walking’
This song came from a collaboration between myself and cellist Emma Coleman, and is simply a love letter to the joy of travel, of broadening your horizons and awakening your senses to new experiences in a land far away. The guitar tone was achieved by weaving a strip of train ticket through the strings, and the riff nods to both samba and rhumba. Set against this is a groove that owes a lot to Khruangbin, straight and spacious.
5. La Vérité
‘La Vérité
If you could cover the floor with your colour’
There is a friend of Fred’s who is a dancer, and when she dances it turns any space into a dancefloor. Yet the expression of her joy in movement doesn’t show off, or say ‘Look at me’ but instead just feels very real and open. La Vérité (French for ‘the truth’) is a tribute to those who dance with a liberation that invites others into their own authentic movement. With the groove we tried to really lean into a rocky energy on a groove that has a swinging Ethiopiques flavour.
6. How Can I Sing
‘I shook at the trunk until the branches seemed to be bare’
How Can I Sing is a melancholy ballad hidden inside of a banger that drives hard with elements of Afrobeat, classic 90s dance and even UK garage. The chorus is built on a single, insistent line (‘How can I sing if I haven’t got you in my life’) that is inspired by the likes of Basement Jaxx, but the verses seem more suited to a traditional jazz ballad, rich with imagery that draws out the sense of loss in the song. The tension in this contrast is such that we’ve decided to record a second version that leans into the ballad element.
7. Bring Summer
‘I hope I know you when I’m grey and old
I hope to hear from you when the silence overcomes
I hope to call you when my body goes
I hope to see you to bring a summer for my soul’
The first single from the album and the title track it’s an aching meditation on the fear of being lonely in old age framed by the golden glow of highlife, the driving insistence of Afrobeats and the delicate textures of chamber folk. It stems from a specific moment, when our five-year-old asked my partner and I what we were afraid of. Without hesitation, my partner said her greatest fear is that one day she will be old and alone… the directness of her response stayed with me and Bring Summer is an exploration of this basic fear. The narrator’s hope is that, in the autumn of their existence, through maintaining connection, we can bring the energy and warmth of summer to our souls.
8. Had I Made A Sound
‘Once upon a time I found a voice to lift the weight upon my shoulders
Blowing on the smoulder such to light a fire in answer to my soul’
The groove for this song is inspired by Somi’s Hapo Zamani, which switches between an amazing lilt in the verses and a frenetic higher tempo section, and then back again. We started with a 3 over 4 idea on the guitar, but once that riff drops out after the second chorus, the track seems to morph into a soul-y 12-8 shuffle. The lyrics were again developed alongside Emma Coleman and are about finding your voice and using it without fear.
9. Volons Vers La Lune
‘Il n’y a pas que moi
Qui voudrait s’échapper’
Loosely translated as ‘Let’s Fly To The Moon’ Volons Vers La Lune is at heart a simple, catchy folk song, almost a nursery rhyme, but it’s been built into an explosive, hard-swinging track with elements from gnawa, rock and dance music.
The song draws on the imagination of childhood, where we play like we really believe we’re going to space, but there is a darker undertone that can be read into the themes of escape from a troubled world heading for environmental disaster and our anxieties about the earth our children will inherit. The two ain vocal melodies came to me almost fully formed while I cycled between schools for my teaching work. Later, when I was playing with a very early draft without lyrics, my 5-year-old son heard it and asked what it was about. I said it wasn’t about anything yet. He said it should be about flying to the moon. I decided to follow this idea, see what could happen, to trust this child’s instincts.
10. Cumbria
Clarinettist Sam Murray has a deep love of cumbia, and this track was made so he could let rip and really explode with us. As we didn’t have anyone to play the classic cumbia rhythm on the güira, we moved it onto guitar and it’s given the whole thing a bit of a reggae flavour. That’s something I like about this band: even when we try to play an obvious tribute to a style, it ends up morphing into something that is still our own, thanks to the instruments involved and the personalities of the players.
