Alice Costelloe has released her final preview of the upcoming debut album Move On With The Year, set to drop on February 6th via Moshi Moshi Records. The new track, “How Can I,” pairs bright tambourine shakes and honeyed harmonies with a deeply personal lyrical core. It’s a song that captures the complex pull of lingering affection despite a difficult past, serving as a standout moment on a record that marks Costelloe’s transition from a rising indie name to one of the UK’s most essential new songwriters.
Speaking on the track’s release, Alice says:
“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. 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.”
The album, produced by Mike Lindsay (known for his work with Laura Marling and LUMP), serves as a document of emotional repair and creative “detangling.” Much of the record’s weight stems from Costelloe’s childhood memories of her father’s substance abuse, an “awakening” that occurred in her teens and now threads through her writing. This honesty has already earned her a massive groundswell of support, with tastemakers like Iggy Pop and Lauren Laverne championing her work, alongside a steady run of sold-out London shows and high-profile tours supporting Future Islands and Gengahr.
Despite the heavy themes of the record, “How Can I” finds a way to lean into positivity and light. Costelloe admits that the track was partly influenced by the idea of “casting spells” through performance, leading her to include a defiant, self-affirming mantra in the lyrics. By dismantling the noise of her past and rebuilding it into intimate art-pop, Costelloe has created a debut that feels both fragile and fearless, a sentiment echoed by outlets like The Guardian and NME, who have already hailed her work as “riveting.”
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