Brixton-based indie-pop newcomers Bamily are fans of smooth, laid-back bops, and their new EP ‘Oh Damn’ is chock-full of them. The long-time friends – Tim, Charlie, Louis, and Benjy – have a knack for taking on pretty depressing topics, like other people’s opinions and missing your pals, and infusing them with hope and reassurance. Here, they talk us through their new release, track by track.
Inspirational Quotes
Louis: ‘Inspirational Quotes’ was the first piece of music I wrote with my synth, the Yamaha DX7 (you can hear it as the opening motif). The song takes aim at the societal pressures to achieve as a young person. I felt the name ‘inspirational quotes’ was a suitably ironic name for such the subject matter, given the ubiquity of ‘inspirational’ quotes across social media platforms and other media outlets.
Oh Damn
Benj: 2020 has been a lot, probably the most ‘Oh Damn’ year ever. In good ways, but mostly pretty bad. Either way, it’s been a lot to take in. So I wanted to write something about that feeling of being swallowed. That feeling of thinking you’re totally alone and like you don’t have anyone there for you. Hopefully, this tune will let you know that everybody gets like that, maybe you’re not alone and sometimes you just gotta say oh damn and face everything being shit for a bit, dance in the rain and then it can get better.
We Used To Hang Out
Louis: I wrote ‘We Used To Hang Out’ at the start of lockdown. I was feeling sort of emotional about not being able to see my pals and knew that I had to capture this strange feeling that the world was ending and put it in a song. As I was writing, my mind kept drifting back to the girl I had just stopped seeing before the virus came. I knew that I wouldn’t see her for at least a few months now, and that these feelings of distance from her, combined with the impending doom of the apocalypse, would now be what journalists kept calling ‘the new normal’. The feeling of isolation and distance from a specific person is, unfortunately, one I’m sure people can relate to from the mayhem and the misery of this shitty, shitty year.
Party Woman
Louis: ‘Party Woman’ is a song about a friends-with-benefits kind of situation between a boy and a girl. We wanted to write a song that celebrated sexual freedom without trying to be sexy. The video highlights the phrase ‘walk of shame’ which women hear a lot. We knew the concept of flipping the walk of shame into a ‘stride of pride’ would be a fun way to play with some of the themes in the song and were extremely fortunate to be able to call upon our friend Becky Garner to assemble an all-female crew for the video.
London
Benj: London started as one of Kudo Tim’s projects. If you get a project from Tim, it is a beautiful chaos. Tim’s projects are like a big canvas with stuff all over the place, but everything sounds amazing. So taming it into a song is always quite a sad culling process of great sounds. Pittsy then had the inspired idea to chuck a song we wrote ages ago over the top. Originally that song was like a U2 ballad, and it had a big chorus with me and Lou just shouting LONDON, but me and Pittsy were listening to a bunch of Daft Punk at the time and so wanted to use as little vocal as possible and just build a dancey world. Lou also wrote another chorus to it which he still loves and thinks should be in the choon, so if ya message him privately maybe he’ll send ya that version. London is a love letter to our hometown and hopefully sounds like walking around the beautiful messy city at night, maybe over Waterloo bridge or something.
Dream Crusher
Benj: ‘Dream Crusher’ began with Pittsy sending me that beautiful hypnotic acoustic guitar loop. For a while, I just wrote bits over that. I wanted to write something about when you fancy someone, and you can’t get them and how much that swims around your head. When you’re alone in your bedroom, it feels like your at war with your brain. And then to make it even more confusing, you keep dreaming about them. Me and Pittsy had a sesh, and he put those tasty chugging drums on the track. And most importantly four to the floor kick on the chorus (we love doing that in like surprising places, I hope somewhere in the world someone might play this choon on a dance floor at a little down moment in their set). The drums brought out this desperate chorus of like being lost in the dream of someone and knowing when you wake up, you’re alone again. Then Lou and Tim brought their magic to the choon. Lou chucked down those lush harmonies and just generally honed the song with me. But most importantly, Lou and Kudo made it sound like it was swimming in an actual dream with a bunch of sounds. The dream crusher logic project is like a mystical forest of sounds, something even Deep Forest himself would be proud of. I hope you get lost in it and I hope if ya do fancy someone and you can’t them, you’ll know you’re not alone.
Bamily’s ‘Oh Damn’ EP is out now.
