Premiere: San Fermin Shares New Song, “Someone You Call Baby”
New EP Your Ghost Coming September 9th via Better Company Records
Indie pop outfit San Fermin are back today with news of a new EP entitled Your Ghost, arriving September 9th via the band’s record label, Better Company Records. The EP is the latest step in the band’s increasingly prolific output, arriving after their 2020 record, The Cormorant I & II and their 2021 collaborative EP, In This House.
Your Ghost sees vocalist Allen Tate stepping into a producer role for the first time, pushing songwriter Ellis Ludwig-Leone in new creative directions. The resulting EP allows the band’s restless musical approach to momentarily settle into a set of comparatively sparse and soul-stirring confessionals without losing the lush beauty that has become their trademark. Fans can see this new creative dynamic in action with the EP’s lead single, “Someone You Call Baby,” premiering with Under the Radar.
“Someone You Call Baby” finds vocalist Claire Wellin meditating on a changing relationship as distance grows, friends move away, and new relationships form. It begins as a melancholic ballad with the band locking into an effortless acoustic groove, but in the latter half the track ascends into powerfully cathartic climax, backed by lush layers of brass and keys.
The track captures the band’s talent for gorgeously arranged instrumentation and slow-burning climaxes, yet it also shows a newly fragile emotional element, revealing stark new facets to Ludwig-Leone’s songwriting. There is austere simplicity and genuine emotional core to the band’s lyricism, one that elevates the track’s deep longing confessionals一“Do you think you think you’ll still respond / To the text I send at 1 AM / When there’s someone you call baby? / Will it be like nothing’s even changed? / Do you think you’ll still come out to the after party / When you’re bringing someone you call baby?”
Speaking on the track, Ludwig-Leone writes,
“Since Allen took over producing, my writing process has really changed. I wrote this one at the piano and it came out almost like a ballad, which I never usually write. The song had three distinct sections we really liked, but we couldn’t figure out how to piece it all together, til we finally landed on a version where the first half of the song is a relaxed acoustic guitar groove, which sets up this big cathartic build at the end. Allen and I argued about this one a lot, but often those end up being the best songs.”
Check out the song early below. You can also read Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s brief Q&A with Under the Radar on “Someone You Call Baby” and the forthcoming EP. The Your Ghost EP is out everywhere on September 9th via Better Company Records.
With regard to building your forthcoming three-track EP, where did you begin, conceptually? And how did “Someone You Call Baby” make the cut?
This EP was a departure from my normal writing process, because Allen is producing the music for the first time and has been getting involved earlier in the songwriting process. He pushed me to be more direct both lyrically but also musically, because usually I get preoccupied with the arrangements when I’m writing. But for these songs, I wrote at the piano, bare bones style. So this EP was really an experiment, a proof of concept that I can write songs in that more classic vein.
You spoke on how this track took a lot of work to finally reach its end result — what were some of the ideas that hit the cutting room floor during the troubleshooting process?
The thing we had to work out was the form. I knew I liked that chorus that opens the song, which I had initially thought of as a verse, and I liked that refrain at the end. But figuring out how to piece it all together took a bit of time, making everything set up that last refrain so that when you arrive, you can just live in it and let it build and repeat.
How would you say this new single fits into the San Fermin discography, stylistically and thematically?
It’s a new approach with the way my working relationship with Allen has evolved, but the music has a lot in common with other parts of our discography. The way the track builds to the end and sets up that final keyboard/brass line that comes in for the last eight bars, that catharsis feels pretty in line with what people might expect from a San Fermin song. I really like the tune, but I’m also excited for what it sets up for the future of the band… writing this EP opened up a lot of new ground for me from a songwriting perspective that I’m excited to explore.
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