The impressive rise of Tugboat Captain has already taken them from home recording in their front room to Abbey Road, and is showing no signs of slowing down. The London-based quartet recently decamped to the iconic studios to work on their upcoming third album. With that release in mind the band will soon be heading to the other side of the Atlantic to play at both SXSW and the New York-based New Colossus Festival. To cover the costs of those trips, the band have started an Indiegogo campaign, with the reward of home-recorded demo versions of their new album. Today we’re sharing the version of one of the record’s stand out tracks, Day To Day.

Presented here, Day To Day, is a slice of bright indie-pop, resplendent with twangy-lead guitars, muted tumbling drum rhythms and flourishes of distant twinkling keyboards. The bright music, is a neat contrast to the somewhat downbeat lead-vocal, vocalist Alex Sokolow, detailing the minutiae of pursuing the dream, while existing just above the breadline, noting how, “I’ll set the bar pretty low, each days a success if I can pay for my own smokes, I am resigned to never own my home, I’m not designed for hope”. The whole thing builds to an acapella outro, as Alex accompanied by the wordless harmonies of his bandmates sings, “keep your success, I guess I’ll confess, I’m living day to day”.

Even in demo form, this feels like a different mood for Tugboat Captain, while previously their gaze was inwards, tackling the workings, or lack thereof, of the heart, here they seem to have the bigger picture in view. This is the band questioning the world around them, and asking who is it working for. As for the future album version, well we’re lucky enough to have heard it already and it’s a completely different musical beast, for that though, you’ll just need to make sure to keep an eye on all things Tugboat Captain.

Click HERE to contribute to Tugboat Captain’s Big USA Fundraiser.

Tugboat Captain play our gig night with Scared To Dance at The Victoria in Dalston this Friday, with support from The Other Ones – Get your FREE Tickets HERE