Listen to Move With Me, the latest single from Brittany McQuinn and Daniel James’ collaborative project Bleum.
Matt Carter
Bleum have a batch of songs they affectionately refer to as their August Songs. Near the tail end of last summer, vocalist Brittany McQuinn and producer Daniel James began riding a wave of creativity that lasted a several weeks and ended up yielding an enormous pile of new material they were both really pleased with.
“Daniel would make a beat early in the morning then often a second beat around noon,” said McQuinn. “I would write to one or both of them, sending vocals back in the afternoon. By the evening we had a song or two and we did this nearly every day for a few weeks.
“When you’re writing that much music, you’re bound to have some songs that you’re really happy with, but almost all of the August songs felt like home runs and I think that’s part of what made it such an incredible month. Many of the songs we do live now are from August of last year.”
Move With Me is the group’s third single and the first to surface from that bout of inspiration.
“Move With Me was one of those songs that stuck out to us as a bit of a creative breakthrough, and it seemed like a great one to kick off 2019 single releases with,” said McQuinn. “We really let ourselves outside of our own creative boxes and carved out a sound thatʼs unique. Move With Me represents that sound well.”
McQuinn believes part of the success of the group’s August Song period came through taking a different approach to writing. Instead of approaching each track with a specific agenda or topic in mind, she simply let things happen on their own.
“I wrote without overthinking and it was interesting to hear myself singing about things Iʼd never talked about or even realized I had in my unconscious mind,” she said. “Itʼs really cool when you create something, step back and listen to it, and have it lovingly teach you what you need. Not every song is like that. Honestly, many songs arenʼt, but what I learned with songs like this is if you lean into creative vulnerability in this way a song can help you in your everyday life to be happier.
“Now when I hear Move With Me, I understand it to be me saying to the people around me, “Hey I know Iʼve changed a lot, but Iʼve figured out my flow, and Iʼm not going back to the way I was before. If you want to be close to me I need you to be ok with me embracing positive change for myself as I discover new things.
“The song itself also seemed to be asking us to move with it as it was being finished up for release. It ended up sounding a little more serious than the earlier mixes. Iʼm glad we moved with the song because I noticed Daniel have another breakthrough as a producer while we were wrapping this up.”
Over the group’s three year collaboration, Bleum have written more than 70 songs. McQuinn says Move With Me is just the first in a series of tracks the group plan to release in the coming year.
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