A four-piece band based out of Seattle, Loose Wing first appeared back in 2019 with their well-received, and self-titled debut album. Led by songwriter Claire Tucker, the band recently hauled themselves over to Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, for a “rock’n’roll vacation”, where they would spend their days recording and their evening over-dubbing ideas on whatever instruments they could find, or soaking in the hot tub next to the creek. The result is the thematic, “grab-bag” of ideas that is their second album, Miracle Baby, which they’re previewing here today as they premiere their new single, Capital Alphabet.

A song that many can surely relate to Capital Alphabet is a song Claire wrote, “when I had a web development job that I hated”. It was a time of panic and imposter syndrome, “I held a lot of resentment towards the prevailing model of life where you get up, put all your energy into a job, then go home drained and exhausted. I was feeling socially out of place trying to force myself into that role, surrounded by people who seemed to thrive in that life”. The song by its very existence is a thumb in the eye of the expectations of a capitalistic world, a reminder in the age of climate crisis, we have to question the expectation that work trumps all, “things are looking up for the company, they’re gonna buy the moon, things are looking up for the company, we’ve got a flash sale on single-use plastics”.

Musically, Capital Alphabet is a gritty take on indie-pop, reminiscent of bands like The New Pornographers and Stars who made the Canadian scene of the late noughties so thrilling. It opens with a prominent lurching-bass, and grungy, low-strung guitars before a retro-sounding keyboard line cuts through and a second guitar enters, adding propulsion as it breaks through the murk. Atop it all Claire’s vocal, lightly distorted, walks the line between struggle and triumph, shedding the skin of society’s expectations as she goes in search of something that fits her better, “professional paradise, I am so bored, feels like I’m through falling the floor, straight to the core of the earth, will I find my people there?”

With their welcome return, Loose Wing seem to be asking questions that really cut close to the bone. Claire Tucker’s own take on, “contemporary humanity” isn’t a scathing takedown, it’s an arm around the shoulder, a question asked, can we change things? Can we be better to one another? And when she sings it with such beauty and gusto, it’s hard not to believe for the duration of a three-minute pop song that anything is possible.

Miracle Baby is out November 10th via Drums & Wires Recordings. For more information on Loose Wing visit http://www.loosewingmusic.com/.