ONE of the most vital bands in Scotland is to celebrate the release of their debut album with a one-off gig in Glasgow.
Sassy pop duo Bossy Love will perform from Me + U at Nice N Sleazy before heading out on a full tour in February.
The gig, which will feature synth player Ollie Cox alongside vocalist Amandah Wilkinson and producer/programmer John Baillie Jnr, is the first time fans can hear live tracks from the album following its release on Halloween.
“We’re going to play most of it,” says Baillie Jnr. “And we’ll play longer than we normally would – we really want to make it a celebration of the album, and we’ll fire some mad old stuff in there too.”
The 12-track album, recorded at the band’s own GoodRooms studio in Glasgow, is “about the cycle of life and death in relationships” and sees the band further refine their bold, colourful take on r’n’b, club cuts and chart-topping pop.
Me + U stuns from the off with a one-two of powerful punches: The E, a libidinous slab of Prince-style funk written with Grammy-winner Jimmy Harry and should-be chart-topper Girlfriend, which Wilkinson originally wrote with Kahlid contributor Carl Dimataga for The Saturdays.
“Carl is one of my songwriting soulmates,” says Wilkinson, who’s been writing music since her teens, most notably as the frontwoman of award-winning Queensland pop punks Operator Please.
“Carl and I don’t work together often but when we do something magical happens. I never intended to be the one singing Girlfriend but after we recorded it and started playing it live with Bossy Love, I personally connected to it in a whole different way.”
Wilkinson re-discovered the track, about finding out you’re the “other woman” when writing the album, which closes with Girlfriend II, an uplifting song about coming out the other side. The songs were written around the same time, she explains.
“At the time we didn’t think they’d be almost a pair, part of a bigger story,” she says. “It took recording them to realise this. The opening of the record is that initial sting when you realise you’ve been made a fool of. Girlfriend II is the final kiss goodbye to something that isn’t serving you and realising that in the end all your have is yourself.”
Wilkinson adds: “That explanation sounds a bit morbid but it’s also about surviving, coming though it all and being able to move forward with your newfound strength. Breaking is the easy part but getting back up is the struggle.”
The inspiring ode to resilience and self-reliance ends with “this heart’s not giving up/don’t fall apart I’m getting up”, a couplet central to Me + U’s affecting title track. When tears trickle from Wilkinson’s eyes in the video, you know the emotion behind the track is nothing less than genuine.
“Me + You is the result of the most devastated I’ve ever felt in my entire life, so for the album to be centred around that track is huge,” she says. “I’m saying that, even though I’m falling apart I’m going to get back up and move forward. No matter how many times I experience heartbreak or get knocked down, I will always get up. It’s about not shutting yourself off from the world, not blocking your emotions and never being scared to give your heart freely again even though you know there’s a chance you’ll get it broken again. Love is all we’ve truly got to give. You feel it, you live in that emotion and then you get up.”
Wilkinson partly credits Baillie Jnr with helping to foster the emotional rawness central to her work with Bossy Love. As the songwriter told The National earlier this year, whereas her earlier lyrics may have been cloaked in metaphor, her creative partner’s encouragement allowed her to “open up and say what I wanted to say”.
“I had to really get to this point in myself to be able to be so open and honest lyrically,” she says now. “I also had to feel safe with the person I am making music with and comfortable. Luckily, John provides that safety for me.”
The pair’s creative relationship goes back to 2008 when Operator Please toured the UK with Tyneside’s finest The Futureheads. Supporting the date at Dundee’s Fat Sams was Baillie Jnr’s then-band Danananakroyd.
They immediately struck a friendship which proved lasting and fruitful, with the two swapping music online ever since. It is their hands which are securely interlaced on Me + U’s cover.
“What John and I have is some kind of weird spooky thing that I can’t really explain or put into words,” offers Wilkinson. “I don’t think that will ever go away.”
It's on November 29, at Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, 8pm, £9.90.
Get tickets at: seetickets.com or bossylove.com
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