Bloomsday - Place to Land (2022)

Bloomsday – the Brooklyn-based indie dream pop duo of Iris James Garrison and Alex Harwood – share their gorgeous debut album Place to Land. Recorded over the months of 2020, the seven-track release was written during Garrison’s gender transition, with lyrics beautifully weaving through “periods of loss, upheaval, hope, fear,” but, most of all, “setting oneself free.” Written, performed, and fronted by Garrison (they/them) and beautifully produced and accompanied by Harwood, the “brotherly dynamic” between the duo is seamless, earnest, and built on a sense of trust that is palpable, resulting in a wonderful debut that feels refreshingly lived-in.

Built upon soft guitars and stark percussion, opener “Phase” comments on the process of transition and eventual rebirth. In the process of writing it, Garrison reminisced that “everything in my life had changed: my housing, my job, my girlfriend dumped me. It was this feeling of all of this ‘me’ in my life being in flux.” Singing the track became therapeutic for them, hoping that in this creative process everything would mend itself: “I’m mapping a route,” they clarify in the track’s chorus, “I’m asking for the easy way out,” because “what’s done is done.” However, there is, within the track, a sinking realization that nothing comes immaculately in the end, that growth is, of course, a process, never instantaneous. “Voicemail” expresses that growth does not always have to be lonely or exclusively internal, either – Garrison explains that the person they met during this time “was helping me trust in my new growth, that they had helped plant new roots in myself emotionally,” using a propagation metaphor to express the idea of fragmentation as anything but weakness. They continue:

[The lyric] “If your leaves start growing away from me, I’ll know it’s meant to be” is expressing that brevity can be beautiful. Some people come into your life, you learn something essential from one another, and then you grow apart. I wrote this song as a voicemail that was never sent. Things I wish I could express to this person that I couldn’t because I was unfortunately ghosted (sigh).

A lost connection also substantially haunts the narrative of the lithe, minimal closer “Howl,” explaining that the person they’ve let go is still “hiding/ Underneath my bruise,” stunting their healing and their future growth. It is also brought up in “See the End,” but here, Garrison’s vocals are interspersed with jagged, gritty guitars, suggesting an overall sense of self-actualization: “I don’t want to waste your time anymore,” Garrison exclaims, “cause I could waste a lifetime / hoping you’d want more.” While these tracks may sound somber and pensive, ultimately, we hear warmth and resilience in Place To Land. In fact, it’s implied in the name; it evokes a sure-thing, something to fall back on, a space to regain your strength before setting out again.