Nine years ago, Laurie Cottingham, aka Brightr, delivered his debut album – ‘Year One’. It saw the Newport-based singer-songwriter establish his brand of emotionally-charged acoustic emo-pop. He would follow it up with the ‘Two Sides’ EP in 2019. Rooted in his cathartic lyricism, the six-track outing highlighted Cottingham’s vulnerability. Today (July 25th) sees Brightr deliver ‘Year Two’.
Picking up where ‘Year One’ and in part, ‘Two Sides’ left off, ‘Year Two’ sees Brightr return with nine personal cuts of “gloomy emo-pop”. Cottingham’s earnest words are thoroughly diaristic, maintaining the lyrically exposed nature of its predecessors. There’s a constant heartfelt and raw approach to Cottingham’s music. He’s just a man with his guitar, pouring his soul out for anyone willing to listen.
Working alongside producer/engineer Matt O’Grady (You Me At Six /Deaf Havana / Don Broco), songs such as ‘Charles Petrescu’ and ‘Lugosi’ are delivered with a pop-punk-like rush. Elsewhere, ‘Whimsy’ and ‘Lovejoy’ dwell in a serene balladic nature. Whereas ‘Coffee’ offers a beacon of hope in a world of hopelessness.
To tell the story of how ‘Year Two’ came to be, Brightr‘s Laurie Cottingham has penned a detailed walkthrough of the record. Read on as he tells the stories behind the songs of ‘Year Two’.
The making of ‘Year Two’
It may have been nearly a decade since I released my debut album and began the gloomiest of journeys as Brightr, but the beginning of ‘Year Two’ was pretty much immediately after we had wrapped recording ‘Year One’. Brightr has always been about reflection; about the challenge of coping with hard memories and the navigation of life afterwards; forever focussed on the catharsis of putting all of those terrible feelings in to something positive, however painful, however much the brutal honesty makes me vulnerable, the goal has always been connection and the hope of something better coming out of all that bile.
So yeah, as I was saying, ‘Year Two’ began where ‘Year One’ fell silent, in concept at least. If you’ve really got the time and you fancy a big ol’ slab of gloomy emo pop with a cup of coffee or three, then ‘Year One’, ‘Two Sides’ and ‘Year Two’ all flow seemlessly on from one another in a sort of trilogy (my ‘Lord of the Rings if you will). Nevertheless, it was never intended to be some sort of conceptual masterpiece. It’s just life and the ever insane emotional rollercoaster that life can be. So, without further ado here is my song-by-song explanatory deep dive into ‘Year Two’, the writing and the making of. Enjoiii.
Sunshine Coast
I’m pretty certain this song began with a riff I wrote and recorded in to my phone in the week following the completion of ‘Year One’. Though it was one of those complete ideas that felt really cool and fun to play at the time, enough to record it, but then like with most of my phone-recorded ideas, it got forgotten about.
It wasn’t until the covid years when I was on a bit of a creation mission musically that I decided to trawl through some older demo recordings and found the guitar part to ‘Sunshine Coast’, it was perfect, I immediately set about writing lyrics and a vocal melody and the song was born in minutes, better late than never.
It is a short piece of utter sadness to begin ‘Year Two’ named after the nickname of an old home town and written lyrically as a pair with the second track on the album (‘Charles Petrescu’).
It is a song about one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to accept in my life and about the daily feelings of air-stealing guilt that go with it. I wrote this song as a reminder to myself that a happy ending doesn’t come without some scars and to never forget the beautiful ones. When it came to recording it, ‘Sunshine Coast’ was probably the fastest song I’ve ever recorded; both the guitar and vocals were almost one-takes (of course, we’re professional, so we did a few more just to be sure). It comes and goes in a flash on the record, as much as it was a tiny part of the recording process.
Charles Petrescu
‘Charles’ is the much faster, much twiddlier, much more muchier emotional sibling of ‘Sunshine Coast’, named after the robot from the brilliant UK film, ‘Brian and Charles’. Where SC is an expression of brutal guilt, of gut-punching daily inner turmoil and unsolvable sadness, Charles is a fast-paced acceptance of change, of leaving the past behind. Almost like a loud scream in a one-man room, it is a personal realisation of the facts and an understanding that they can’t be changed. Charles is me dealing with a painful past in possibly the most unhopeful and self-deprecating manner, but it felt good to release it, and it’s become a bit of a crowd singalong, so ultimately it connects with people, which is amazing. Again, this song flowed so quickly and so easily when we were recording it was done in a small number of takes, more to try and capture the vibe than because it was soooo wrong we had to do it again and again.
I should probably pause for two seconds and say that as a running theme, recording ‘Year Two’ was a very quick process. Re-united with my brilliantly talented friend Matty O’Grady (of You Me At Six fame, don’t you know, shhhh) we planned to take as long as ‘Year One’, but ended up tracking everything in 3 days and then just hanging out, catching up and enjoying the simple organic nature of the record. We wanted no mad studio frills, just a close mic on the acoustic guitar and two room mics a bit further away to firstly do away with a need for double tracking guitar and secondly attempt to capture the vibe and natural resonance of the moment. Vocals were done with a stunning condenser mic (no spoilers here, you’ll have to go to Matt for recording and see) and just a lot of vibe in the room. The recording was quick, mixing was a bit longer, frills were minimal, and vibes were high.
Whimsy
I love ‘Whimsy’, both the song and in general. If you’ve ever seen me play live or met me in person, you’ll know that although my songs might be sad as hell, they aren’t all of me, just a horrible little bit that I’ve shed away and placed in words. I love lighthearted humour and complete sarcastic silliness; however, ‘Whimsy’ is actually anything but lighthearted.
It tells a story of love and loss, of giving every part of you to something that ultimately isn’t giving the same love back. I don’t really know why I called it whimsy other than to give a little light to something that was getting worryingly dark. For me, it is the most different and unique song on ‘Year Two’. Purposefully placed after the fast-paced chaos of ‘Charles,’ it was intended to be a sudden and sweet respite, but I can’t help but get ‘At home with Owen’ vibes every time I hear it with the album, even though it wasn’t a rip, I promise.
Fun fact: it was the recording of this song for ‘Year Two’ that prompted me and Matt to decide upon the ‘room mic’ idea instead of double tracking guitars. We realised that double tracking all the widdly bits was just going to sound either messy or unnaturally studio fake, so we bore an idea and ran with it, and it sounds excellent.
Never Home, Never Mind
For me (and for Matt too) ‘NHNM’ is the ‘big single’ on ‘Year Two’, it always felt that way once it was recorded.
Lyrically, its theme is everything this record is: a reflection on past mistakes and a promise to do better. I wrote this song in the middle of last year. It came out of nowhere, crashing in upon what was an annoying but relatively short-lived songwriting drought, totally unforced, but brilliant.
I love this song. It is my standout favourite on the album and paved the way to finishing off the entire thing, ready for the studio adventure.
Again, we tracked it fast and loose, all about capturing the feeling of the song rather than some mad perfection, but to me it sounds perfect. Both lyrically and musically poetic, I am so proud of the way the words flow with the guitar melody. I love how everything about it was crafted to resonate together, and even more so, I am blown away by how quickly people are singing along to it and have connected to it.
Lugosi
Named after the dracula-famed actor Bela Lugosi (whom my wife sees in times of uncertainty, appearing as a ‘sleep paralysis demon’ sat on her bed stroking her hair and just offering a sense of calm), ‘Lugosi’ is an anthem for anyone who has ever felt under pressure, like everything they do results in making a mess of things.
Lyrically, this is one of my favourites from ‘Year Two’. It ebbs and flows between tongue-twisters and big bold statements of feeling and intent, but at no time is a typical Brightr ‘sad’ song. It’s about as close as I’ve ever come to penning a strictly positive song. Its message is simple: you are perfectly imperfect, be who you are, make mistakes, fall on your face, get up, try again, because the world is imperfect and we are all imperfectly perfect within it.
This song, especially, was one that Matt and I tried hard to capture a feeling rather than sheer perfection when it was recorded. We changed the intro riff to be less technical, with the simplicity really to cut the pomp and bows to make a song. We wanted to make it resonate and say something obvious, but that sometimes we forget, humanity is flawed, but it is what we make of it, what we do that makes things right and beautiful. As the lyrics say, “all the right that we can make when all is peaceful all is great”.
Coffee
I wrote and originally released ‘Coffee’ in 2020 on a split with my best friend Chris of UK emo superwizards’ h_ngm_n. The original was recorded in my kitchen during lockdown and was mixed/mastered by Chris. However, the song took on a life of its own, quickly becoming a favourite for everyone who knows my music, so when live shows began again, it almost surpassed ‘We’ for sing-alongs. Therefore, it was always going to be rewritten, you could say. When I was deciding upon songs for ‘Year Two,’ I realised that ‘Coffee’ (along with ‘Definitely’ and ‘Housefires’) needed to be re-recorded and re-born.
It is a song about a time when I felt so burnt out from overworking, the state of the virus world at the time, and just a feeling that my loved ones would be better without me around. I convinced myself I was hopeless, nothing but a life-insurance policy claim in waiting and became morbidly attached to the idea of my untimely demise. Writing this song saved my life again, in the same way that ‘Mark Strong‘ did before, as did ‘We’ before that. It was pivotal to survival, and to be honest, that dark, horrible feeling created a song that reminds me that it is so important to open up about your feelings and mental health. It’s a reminder to never allow yourself to be truly alone, even if the only voice you hear is the one telling you to write a song, or do something positive with that terrible emotional state.
Definitely
There isn’t a lot to say about ‘Definitely,’ apart from Matt and I decided it had to be re-recorded for ‘Year Two’. Originally released on a split with Tim Holehouse in 2021, I never really felt my kitchen recording skills had done it any justice.
It is the most complicated and widdly song on the record by far, an assault of technical guitars alongside technical vocal melody. It was probably the hardest to nail in the studio, simply because this one was all about getting it right, which made it a tough process. However, I think it shines through in how good this new version sounds.
Housefires
Another of the trio that was released in a rough kind of form during lockdown, ‘Housefires’ has lived a few lives on the way to being track 8 on ‘Year Two’, but they have only served to make it more potent.
This song is about taking every terrible memory, every horrible criticism, every life-shattering and misery-defining moment, and placing them within a vessel before setting that thing on fire and watching it burn so you can move on truly with your life. It is a simple guitar song, no need for frills, just a big melody and a big chorus. It was possibly the easiest after ‘Sunshine Coast’ to record because it was all vibe. I couldn’t be more pleased with this version as it captures the rawness of the original, but just sounds better, I guess because Matt is some kind of wizard, I cannot stress that enough. Wizard!
Lovejoy
And so we reach the climax of ‘Year Two ‘and my ramblings. ‘Lovejoy’ is named after the classic TV show with Ian McShane where he played a rogue antique dealer, long before inhabiting the gun slinging high octane world of John Wick. Of course, the title has nothing to do with the song, but in true Brightr fashion, I decided to name a sad, sad song after a cool thing to amuse myself (see ‘Bergerac’ from Two Sides for reference).
It is a closing song that wraps up the thread of reflection running throughout ‘Year Two’, but offers a hopeful crescendo that rings with a feeling of “what’s next, is it gonna get better?”
Coming full circle, the melody for ‘Lovejoy’ was written in 2016 around a month after ‘Year One’ was released. I made a demo of an early full version, but the lyrical melody wasn’t right and the words weren’t the story it was supposed to tell, so it stayed dormant. Then last year, I heard it by chance on a dive through my phone audio and felt inspired to finish it properly.
So, that is ‘Year Two’. I think I covered pretty much everything. If there is anything else you need to know, come to a show and ask me, I love to chat. Thank you for supporting brightr and underground music in general, you are the heartbeat that keeps this whole thing alive.
Laurie // brightr
‘Year Two’ by Brightr is out now on Sugar-Free Records (vinyl pre-order).
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