A Headful Of Sunflower Bean
There are very few bands I’ve seen live more than once. There are even fewer bands I’ve seen live on stage three times. One such band is the sensational Sunflower Bean, whose performing and songwriting has grown with each successive tour and release. Their latest album, ‘Headful Of Sugar’ is no exception. Here, Moths and Giraffes reviews the complete record with exclusive commentary from all three of the band’s members.
Sunflower Bean. From left to right - Julia Cumming, Olive Faber and Nick Kivlen. Image Credit: Driely Carter.
New York trio Sunflower Bean are comprised of guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen, bassist and vocalist Julia Cumming and drummer Olive Faber. The band released their debut EP, ‘Show Me Your Seven Secrets’ in 2015. The six-track collection features the fan-favourites ‘Tame Impala’ and ‘2013’, the latter of which would be re-recorded for their debut album, ‘Human Ceremony’, released in 2016.
That same year Sunflower Bean also put out a covers EP entitled ‘From The Basement’ - their version of Neil Young’s ‘Harvest Moon’ would see significant play on the tour for the band’s second album ‘Twenty-Two In Blue’. This tour would take Sunflower Bean across North America, Europe and Asia, where they would heavily showcase their latest songs, including the singles, ‘I Was A Fool’, ‘Crisis Fest’ and ‘Twentytwo’.
Image Credit: Driely Carter.
Their trek continued with the trio’s last pre-pandemic release, their four-track EP ‘King Of The Dudes’. The lead single ‘Come For Me’ was a regular climactic moment during their performances in 2019 and early 2020. The Bean’s only release in 2020 was the standalone single ‘Moment In The Sun’, which would later feature in the 2022 Netflix series ‘Heartstopper’, causing a surge in the song’s popularity.
With touring resuming for the band in February and already taking in a round of U.S. and U.K. dates, Sunflower Bean released their third album in early May, entitled ‘Headful Of Sugar’.
“‘Who put you up to this’ was an early track where we started to find the direction we wanted to go. Fuzz bass, big drums, ambient noise and shreddy guitar. The vocal is also super forefronted and most of the attention is directed towards melody and lyric.” – Nick Kivlen
‘Who Put You Up To This?’ is the sound of a band coming to life again, with a rare showing of acoustic guitar during the song’s introduction on an album that doesn’t feature much in the way of acoustic instrumentation. Julia Cumming’s vocal melody echoes in the distance with sustained keyboard, but the air is whipped away with Olive Faber’s drums in a sound that is truly the band’s own.
‘In another life I was a fish, now I’m sitting on the fucking dish, and I’m good enough for the main course, even if I’m the one that’s paying for it.’
Straight away, the melody of the album opener sticks with you in Julia’s crystal-clear delivery, replicated later by Kivlen’s lead guitar line. The lyrics on Headful Of Sugar are a step up too, with elements of the historical divide created by the pandemic evident in this song, referring repeatedly to ‘another life’.
The icing on the cake is the music video, directed by Josefine Cardoni - the story itself penned by Sunflower Bean. The short film shows Julia Cumming dividing a delivery of cash in a motel room, which herself and Nick Kivlen (in between a guitar solo) take in a car driven by Olive Faber to a meeting point. It’s unclear what they’re exchanging for money, but the deal goes awry with Julia dispensing the notes across the street and the police chasing the trio away in their vehicle. Meanwhile, a group of women enter the motel room Julia was staying in and discover the remainder of the cash, but what happens next? To Be Continued.
‘Life is short and the cliffs are high, I don’t have to close my eyes to see us In Flight.’
‘In Flight’ sees Nick Kivlen taking the spotlight in his best lead vocal from across the Sunflower Bean catalogue. Julia harmonises with Nick during the verses, and takes a crucial line in the chorus. Part of the dreamy atmosphere created in this song comes from the keyboard strings which blend beautifully with Julia’s melodic bassline.
Jacob Portrait, who co-produced and mixed ‘Twenty-Two In Blue’ and fronts Unknown Mortal Orchestra, returns to produce and mix ‘Headful Of Sugar’. His involvement with the record extends to songwriting credits on several of the album’s songs, including Who Put You Up To This? and In Flight. We asked Nick what the band likes most about Portrait’s approach to their music:
‘We have very different processes and that usually leads him to push us in ways we normally wouldn’t be pushed. He’s also very talented on the technical side and amazing at playing so many instruments.’ – Nick Kivlen
In Flight is the latest music video from Sunflower Bean and is produced Adam Braun, with director of photography Liam Reardon. After abandoning his car, Nick Kivlen is almost hit by another driven by Olive and Julia. His journey through the video is an unsteady one, but the conclusion sees the trio reunited and getting back in the car first wrecked by Kivlen.
‘Days of darkness fade to night, peering through I can see a crack of light. Slivers of hope, they fade to rust, my daydreams crumble into dust.’
With keyboards flitting from one side of the stereo mix to the other, ‘Otherside’ begins immediately with Julia delivering the opening lines. This track is an unconventional one from The Bean, skewing the traditional band sound as they apply additional textures with each poetic verse.
The final third of Otherside introduces Olive Faber’s rolling drum sound, where the more rhythmic melodic instruments become apparent. As quickly as her drums fade in, they melt away again as the piece dissolves into silence.
‘Nothing in this life is really free.’
‘Roll The Dice’ is the song that made us sit up and pay attention at Moths and Giraffes HQ. Not nearly long enough overall, the swirling fade-in gives way to the anthemic opening line. This song was made for audiences to sing along to.
‘Win big, win lose, that’s just how the game works. In this city money talks, that’s just how the world works.’
Sung by Julia and Nick in unison, Roll The Dice is bass and drums heavy, but amongst the chunky grunge you’ll hear a pretty twinkling keyboard to your right. This is an excellent example of the aural presents hidden across Headful Of Sugar. In contrast to the heavier sections in this track, there is a fragility to be found also in lines that sound as if they’re performed loud enough so only you can hear: ‘He’s the deceiver, he tells you what you want and then he leaves. You’re the believer, nothing in this life is really free.’
Image Credit: Driely Carter.
We asked the band if there was a song that unexpectedly blew them away when it came together. Nick had this to say:
‘Roll the Dice. When we played it live, it kind of sounded like Nirvana, but the recording ended up being much more unique and weird.’ – Nick Kivlen
The visual story beginning in Who Put You Up To This? continues with Roll The Dice. Julia arrives back at the motel and discovers their money is being used to party, taking her frustrations out on the video’s extras. Unlike the former, this music video features a performance aspect from Sunflower Bean, including Olive Faber playing electric guitar instead of drums. Olive tells us the band’s reasoning for creating the story across two of the album’s songs:
‘I think we wanted to create a body of visual content that would give the songs a different perspective. We took them out of the spotlight so they could soundtrack a story.’ – Olive Faber
‘I had a little too much fun today, I got caught up in a memory that took me away. I was trying to escape, but I couldn’t wake.’
The trippy beginning to the album’s title track is a combination of drum machine and electric guitar. With the experimental nature of the band’s recording situation, it’s anyone’s guess on the identity of the third, melodic instrument.
Nick Kivlen’s voice is awash with cavernous reverb, ‘Babe I wanna feed your hunger…’ Combined with a thick bass sound and spinning lead guitar, this song exists in both a heavy, yet dreamlike state. It’s as if you’re experiencing a club in slow motion. Like previous Sunflower Bean albums, the liner notes for Headful Of Sugar don’t explicitly state who plays what, including all the keyboard and programmed parts. Nick elaborates:
‘We all traded off on instruments throughout the recording process. Even though live we have our instrument, in the studio we all play everything.’ – Nick Kivlen
The instrumental track for ‘I Don’t Have Control Sometimes’ is a fascinating listen. The rhythm section almost has a northern soul feel. The accented melody beneath Julia Cumming’s lead vocal is a combination of keyboard and guitar, creating a unified sound that in other worlds could be a brass section or a string quartet. Add to this the lighter acoustic elements during the verses, with multiple backing vocals from Julia and this song becomes a lesson in the chemistry Sunflower Bean have in the studio.
‘On Friday I don’t care what the future brings, on Sunday I stay home and close my blinds. And I don’t care what tomorrow thinks, today I’m totally mine.’
The video directed by Charlotte Ercoli is unique in that it doesn’t feature the band at all. A Sunflower Bean t-shirt lands on the head of a man minding his own business, who proceeds to have the worst day ever. Even a bowl of Bean-O’s are of little comfort.
‘When we met, I thought I was dreaming. I want to see you that way…’
The assertive rhythm section continues for ‘Stand By Me’, but its delivery is smoother, giving way to Nick Kivlen’s recognisable guitar playing style. The writing of this track is more of a collaborative effort, with contributions from the band, Jacob Portrait, Suzy Shinn and Shamir, who provides extra vocals in addition to Julia’s lead. This is most evident in the heavenly bridge, ‘Do you think this is easy? I don’t want to be strong all of the time’ showing how well their voices blend.
Outside of her role within the band, Olive Faber also co-engineered Headful Of Sugar with Jacob Portrait. On ‘Stand By Me’, Shubham Mondal serves as assistant engineer. With a lot of this album being recorded outside of a traditional studio environment, we asked Olive if there were comforts of the studio they missed:
‘Working at home gives you a lot more freedom in how you can work. When you go into a studio it’s usually a scheduled thing and you have x amount of hours to like get stuff done. At home, it’s so much easier to get lost in things and really see ideas through. I hope to do a lot more home recording in the future. But also I think going into more professional spaces like Electric Lady in NYC is really important too because you can get a new perspective on what you’ve been doing.’ – Olive Faber
‘Post heart, post break, Post Love, post hate, backtrack, erase, I can’t shake, your taste.’
The song most unlike anything Sunflower Bean has ever done before is ‘Post Love’. This track, with co-production from Johan Lenox and assistant engineering by Lauren Marquez, features a synthetic backing with drum programming and keyboards that evoke a city at night-time. The trio have since performed the song live on several occasions, including their headline show at New York’s Webster Hall with a more band orientated arrangement. Julia explains the origins of Post Love:
‘Before the pandemic, I was djing a lot in the city. I had a really raunchy club night at this bar called Berlin, and I loved watching which songs would excite the room. I loved finding which indie songs bridged the gap between pure dance and rock. I became obsessed with the idea of a Sunflower Bean song that you could dance to in a club. Most of the lyrics came to me as I was falling asleep, and wrote almost all of them down immediately. It’s about the truths within yourself that are so deep it hurts to admit them.’ – Julia Cumming
‘TV makes me so mad, NPR is always telling me something bad. Everything made in a boardroom, gets pumped straight into my head.’
The first taste of the album came in October 2021 with ‘Baby Don’t Cry’. Contrary to Post Love, Baby Don’t Cry is a slice of classic Sunflower Bean. The sound is brought back to the core trio – guitar, bass, drums and a lead vocal. That isn’t to say it’s out of place on Headful Of Sugar. Part of the verse beat sounds as if the band created it using fret noise without actually playing the guitar. Such experiments can only come from extended studio time as the band were afforded with the making of this album.
‘We can turn the lights down, we can turn them where you think we should.’
‘Beat The Odds’ is dominated by crunchy guitar and a Nick Kivlen delivering an entirely different vocal from his more tender approach on ‘In Flight’. Julia’s vocal harmony is light, and Olive’s drums have an equally human and programmed feel to them. Though taking more of a backseat, there is still keyboard here, most audible during the verses. Shubham Mondal and Lauren Marquez return as assistant engineers on Beat The Odds, creating a bigger sound and an obvious choice for a tour inclusion. We asked Nick more about the guitar sound on Headful Of Sugar:
‘We didn’t use any amps ever! It was all DI with amp simulators and my pedal board. The fave pedal on this record was a boss mega distortion my mom bought for me when I was 8 years old. I rediscovered using it and loved the way it was so unapologetically loud and crazy.’ – Nick Kivlen
‘If I say I love you, will you forget it by tomorrow? I love forgetting things I never meant because they’re hollow.’
The shortest song on Headful Of Sugar is also the last. ‘Feel Somebody’ continues Kivlen’s fuzzy guitar streak, but Julia Cumming takes the lead vocal here, delay grabbing her voice and reverberating it around the audio ether. The lyric reads as an advisory on attachment, ‘I’ve had some lovers and I swear I’ve wasted all of their time’, a fitting end to a record about living in the moment.
‘Headful Of Sugar’ is not merely Sunflower Bean’s third album - this is the first album of the rest of their career. The sounds on these eleven songs are experimental but commercial, futuristic without the alienation, and personal without the claustrophobia. It’s an exciting prospect to see where the band’s journey will take them next.
Finally, Moths and Giraffes asked the band if there were other songs that were demoed during this recording period, but didn’t make the final cut of the album:
‘There were a lot! There is one song called “shake” that we’ve been playing live that will definitely come out.’ – Nick Kivlen
Image Credit: Driely Carter.
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To purchase Sunflower Bean’s new album ‘Headful Of Sugar’ on CD, vinyl, cassette and download, visit their official merchandise store.
Alternatively, visit their Bandcamp page to purchase the band’s back catalogue.
For more information about Sunflower Bean including upcoming tour dates, visit their official website.
Follow Sunflower Bean on Instagram and Facebook @sunflowerbean, and on Twitter @Sunflower_Bean.
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