Produced by Mike Lindsay (Laura Marling, LUMP, Anna B Savage) in his Margate studio, Alice Costelloe’s long-awaited debut solo album is a document of creative detangling and emotional repair; a fragile, fearless piece of art-pop that dismantles the noise of her past and rebuilds something startlingly intimate in its place.

Moving beyond the cool precision of her indie-rock roots, she and Lindsay shape a world of mellotron drones, fluttering flutes, warped synths and stumbling pianos – drawing influence from the work of Feist, Cate Le Bon, and Andy Shauf.

Lead single ‘Move On With The Year’ acts as the album’s quiet manifesto – written through a series of “happy accidents” as Costelloe taught herself new instruments and followed instinct over perfection. Built around a looping piano motif and breathy woodwind lines, it captures the feeling of learning to live again through a love that doesn’t heal cleanly.

“Though it breaks my heart / to be so far,” she sings, “I move on with the year” – a refrain that feels both like a mantra and a wound. Elsewhere, she’s unflinching: “Tell your kids there’s nothing they can do / when you’re on that junk there is no getting through.” It’s familial grief rendered without sentimentality – just clarity, and an instinct for melody that makes the pain feel almost serene.

On the song’s creation, Alice commented: “Like many of the tracks on this record I wrote them through happy accidents while learning to play various instruments. This one I wrote practicing the G major scale on the piano and that’s basically what the bridge of the song is. So much of this record is about childhood, and growing up and it felt appropriate having something as naive as this simple scale for the bridge.

“I was feeling really bored by the guitar when I started writing this record and wanted to find new ways to write melodies. So I bought myself a flute a few months before recording, and figured it wouldn’t be too hard to teach myself and might inspire something new. With the flute, I felt like I had access to a whole new melodic world that sounded sad and pretty, and scrappy (because I was still learning). It felt right for the record that was emerging and felt way more natural to me than some slick lead guitar part.”

Move On With The Year:

1. Anywhere Else
2. How Can I
3. Move On With the Year
4. Every Time
5. Too Late Now
6. Damned If You Do
7. Of Course I Know
8. Feet On The Sand
9. If I Could Reach You
10. Is There Something (Goodbye)

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