Journey Through Early Adulthood In Brother Bird’s ‘gardens’

[Cover photo credit to Libby Danforth]

Nashville’s Brother Bird has released the single and video for “doomsday”, the final single off of debut LP, gardens, which was produced by Andy Hull & Robert McDowell of Manchester Orchestra and arrives on October 29th.

The song “doomsday” was written by Caroline Swon and Andy Hull and recorded at Manchester Orchestra’s Favorite Gentlemen studio outside Atlanta.

Swon, aka Brother Bird, comments:

This is just written from a really pessimistic perspective. When things seem so great you have so much more to lose. Basically waiting for every seemingly good thing to come to a bitter end.”  

The video was directed/animated by London-based artist Jez Pennington and follows a character traveling through an art gallery “fixated on the disastrous paintings around her”. It eventually becomes all-consuming and the building begins to flood and crack and swallows her up.

Though the subject matter for “doom” may seem a little heavy, the album gardens is a “playful mix of energetic shoe-gaze-inspired melodies combined with a handful of cathartic & thought-provoking ballads”. It was written and recorded over the span of three years and “doomsday” follows the release of singles “stay down,” “comeback,” “everything is fine,” and “sleep it off.”  

Brother Bird adds about gardens:

It’s really a journey through early adulthood. I’ve poured every ounce of myself into this collection of songs. It touches on personal battles with mental illness, navigating through love and loss, coming to terms with growing older, and literally everything in between. So much of the lyrical content is about the ugly parts of growing something beautiful. Personal growth can be messy and at times incredibly uninspiring.”  

Brother Bird is the Nashville-based solo project of Caroline Swon, who joined Manchester Orchestra on the road for their co-headlining tour with The Front Bottoms. Swon has also opened up for artists such as Pete Yorn, Cavetown, Pinegrove, & Bad Books.

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