Motorcycle Sound Effects is about growing up. The fleeting feelings, the wishing, longing, pretending, running away, staying grounded. The sticky sweet pull of first love, the bitter taste when it ends, when someone becomes a stranger. Fake friends, easy lovers, instant crushes, pretending to be someone you’re not, even just for a minute.

young friend is experiencing all of it. The resulting album is genuine, bursting with big feelings and perfect golden light. It feels messy and raw, like long summer nights piling into the back of a pickup truck with all your friends, sprinting to catch the last summer sunset, taking off your shoes and dancing in the grass, falling, getting back up.

“It's about the people you encounter and the experiences that make you into the person that you are. I really wanted to capture all the sides of the coin; the shitty sides, the side where I was wrong, the side where I did the right thing and it still didn't work out, the side where something is new and exciting and it's all you can think about, all of it.”

You can feel the performance, but in all the right ways, the ones that feel aligned with how we all felt when we were becoming the people that we now are–or are starting to be. Growing up is inherently performative, full of costume changes and plot twists. Wanting to show your best side, wanting to be someone else, wondering if you’re doing the right thing, whether you might be the problem, what exactly it is that you want.

“I think one of my favourite things to do when writing songs is to tell a story. There's a few times on this record where I become this character in order to tell a specific story and I think that's the fun part about writing songs.”

Produced by friend and frequent collaborator David Marinelli (Wallice, Finneas, Claud), the album pulls inspiration from a multitude of places and artists, landing in this comfy space of new and familiar–and also of a self-discovery. Grungy guitar riffs, pared down folk moments, indie pop breaks that feel straight out of the early 2000s, a full on country song.