Captain Tallen and the Benevolent Entities, the Brooklyn project led by songwriter Tallen Gabriel, have released "Spotted Lantern Fly," The Line of Best Fit reported on August 13. Gabriel says the song is about a specific kind of self-awareness: "I know this isn't good for me, but I keep choosing it anyway." The title borrows from the invasive insect, which Gabriel found dead outside their front door and read as a bad omen for a whirlwind romance the songs were written around.
The song is taken from the band's upcoming debut album, Earth, Swallow Me Whole, due September 18. Gabriel came to the cello as a kid at orchestra camp, and put the instrument aside to focus on writing until hearing it used outside classical music in songs like Paramore's "Misery Business" and Coldplay's "Viva la Vida." Seeing a busker play cello and sing in the subway, far from a conservatory's standards, convinced Gabriel that being a professional musician on those terms was possible.
The Benevolent Entities came together out of friends Gabriel had already been playing and writing with, rather than a formal audition process. "This band came together really just through friends, by asking, 'You wanna play this music with me?'" Gabriel said, describing a group where everyone feels comfortable enough to be honest when something in a song is not working.
The album was recorded over a week in January at Red Hook's Harbor Studios, a waterfront setting Gabriel calls central to the record's nautical feel; ideas could surface at midnight by the fireplace in a way that would not happen with a normal commute and workday in between sessions. Writing through that period, the band was also grappling with events including Minnesota's ICE surge, which Gabriel said felt invisible inside the studio even as it played out on the news outside it.
Gabriel says the songs are ultimately about finding solace in community during hard stretches, including the breakup the record is built around, which "exists outside of me now" once turned into a song other people can hear themselves in. "Spotted Lantern Fly" sits within rock, the genre the folk-rock leaning project files under on MusicSuey, and in the release calendar ahead of the full album next month.
The facts
- The song is called Spotted Lantern Fly
- It previews the debut album Earth, Swallow Me Whole, due September 18
- The project is led by songwriter Tallen Gabriel
- The album was recorded at Red Hook's Harbor Studios in January
- Gabriel says the songs deal with finding solace in community
- The band came together from friends Gabriel had already been playing and writing with
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