Alice Costelloe shares 'How Can I' ahead of debut album out 6th February on Moshi Moshi

London singer-songwriter Alice Costelloe today shares new track 'How Can I' - the final preview of debut album 'Move On With The Year' - out 6th February via Moshi Moshi Records.

One of the album's most revealing moments, new track 'How Can I' skips blithely, all honeyed harmonies and tambourine shakes, while Costelloe wrestles with a dichotomous truth, both a question and a statement: “How can I / Still adore / You know I still adore you”.

“So much of my childhood I had this feeling that something wasn’t right, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it,” Costelloe admits. “My dad was so different: he’d fall asleep mid-sentence with a lit cigarette in his mouth, he couldn’t be woken up no matter how much you tried, and when he wasn’t sleeping he’d take us on strange, and in retrospect, insanely dangerous adventures.” It wasn’t until her early teens, when her older sister confirmed his substance abuse, that those memories came into focus - an awakening that threads through the album’s writing.

Speaking more on the song release, Alice said:

"When I was finishing the song, I read a quote from Feist where she said, ‘When you say something or sing something enough times, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – it’s almost like casting spells.’ It made me think about what it would feel like playing songs full of sadness, night after night, and whether those were the spells I wanted to be casting,” Costelloe explains. “So I added the line ‘I am good, I’m enough, I’m surrounded by love’. I know it’s unbearably cheesy, but I wanted a moment in the set that could counteract some of the darker parts of the record and manifest something more positive."

Over the past year, Alice Costelloe has steadily emerged as one of the UK’s most quietly commanding new songwriters. Early album tasters ‘Anywhere Else’, ‘Move On With The Year’ and ‘Damned If You Do’ have attracted consistent support from BBC 6 Music, with endorsements from Steve Lamacq, Craig Charles, Lauren Laverne, Nick Grimshaw, Nemone and Iggy Pop. That growing profile has been mirrored on the road, with extensive UK and European touring that has seen her support Gengahr and Lael Neale on dates across the UK as well as joining Future Islands in Europe, alongside sold-out London headline shows of her own and appearances at key tastemaker festivals such as The Great Escape and Live At Leeds. Elsewhere, Costelloe has earned sustained praise from press tastemakers including The Guardian ("Riveting"), Loud And Quiet ("Remarkable"), DIY ("Fizzing with nostalgic warmth"), Wonderland, NME, CLASH, Dork, The Line of Best Fit and more.

More about Alice Costelloe's debut album 'Move On With The Year'

Produced by Mike Lindsay (Laura Marling, LUMP, Anna B Savage) in his Margate studio, Alice Costelloe’s long-awaited debut 'Move On With The Year' 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, Julia Jacklin, Cate Le Bon, and Andy Shauf.

'Move On With The Year' is, in Alice’s own words, “an emotional catharsis” - a record written as summer turned to autumn, where lilting melodies deliver devastation in the details. These songs trace the slow, necessary work of pulling focus on a childhood lived in the shadow of addiction, and the hard-to-heal heartbreak that only a parent can imprint. Costelloe’s economical lines cut to the quick, yet they’re delivered without recrimination; there is no closure offered here, only a stoic, steady gaze. Amid brooding atmospherics and gentle, unguarded brightness, 'Move On With The Year' introduces an artist coming into her power – a work imbued with poise, clarity and self-possession.

Alice Costelloe's releases to date have already positioned her as one of the UK’s more compelling voices, yet with forthcoming debut album 'Move On With The Year', Costelloe steps fully into her own language with something strange and beautifully self-assured.

Alice Costelloe's debut album 'Move On With The Year' is out 6th February via Moshi Moshi Records. Alice tours the album with select dates across the UK in February and March. New single 'How Can I' is out now.

LIVE DATES

• 07 January - London, Shacklewell Arms
• 11 February - London, Rough Trade Denmark Street (In-store & Signing)
• 25 February - Huddersfield, AMPED
• 26 February - Sheffield, Sidney & Matilda
• 27 February - Sunderland, The Ship Isis
• 03 March - London, Servant Jazz Quarters (Sold Out)
• 04 March - London, Servant Jazz Quarters (Sold Out)
• 23 March - Bristol, Dot to Dot Festival
• 24 March - Nottingham, Dot to Dot Festival