Comprised of both Lydia Clowes & Teresa Origone, Bad Honey is the newest soul-pop duo from South East London garnering reactions from all over the world. Bad Honey emits a fragile and dreamy voice. Combining the purest sounding vocals, minimal synths and jumping rhythms, culminating in the most succulent of sweet spots-a nice mix of experimental music and lo-fi electronics.
Capturing the hearts of their listeners one by one, the duo have put forward their best efforts into their latest “Awake Tonight” EP. Making its arrival on streaming platforms today, we’ve had the privilege of chatting with the two creatives to break down the project track by track.
STILLNESS
“Inspired by an overwhelming feeling of being small in the face of nature, and how this can bring you back down to earth. We wrote this on a nice sunny day with Frenchie (The Naked Eye) in a park in East London, it’s a simple idea of looking out at the world and having that feeling inside which you can’t quite explain. This song has so many vocal layers, which maybe subconsciously reflected the complexity of humans. Recently having done a road trip in a van where I (Lydia) was forced to live very simply, it made me realise that living simply is so refreshing, and how focusing on very small things throughout your day can really take you back to the basics and not get too caught up in the complexities of life and the things around you.”
EASILY
“This song is a light hearted story of a new found love where all the little things matter. You can definitely tell it was written in the summer. We had a lot of fun making this with all our favourite synths and lots of vocal harmonies and layers, and the middle 8 of the song features a friend Toby Couling playing percussion on some pots and pans, which is our favourite bit of the song. This song is actually so hard to play live as there is so much going on (vocally and instrumentally), so by the time we get to the end of the song at a gig we look at each other really flustered and red faced, it’s so funny.”
BLISSFULLY UNAWARE
“Although on the surface this song may appear light and bouncy there is certainly a darker side to it.We wrote this with our friend Georgia (Sharky), who is also featured in the song. When writing the lyrics we were thinking about the many worries surrounding global warming and our climate in the modern world. It’s about the contrasting outlooks humans can have on these issues, and how helpless it can feel when it seems that half of the world are not taking it seriously enough and the small things you do to try and help feel useless. “Close your eyes or stay awake” referring to either turning a blind eye or doing something about it. After having written the song we had a big instrumental section in the middle which was longing for a rap verse, so we brought our friend Mercy (MEI) in where she voiced her similar thoughts on the whole thing.”
CIRCLES
“Circles is about being in a relationship where both people are fighting their own battles, and finding strength in supporting each other. It’s a positive way of saying ‘I’ve got you and you’ve got me’, and not allowing things to go round in a vicious circle where problems are ignored and the situation gets worse. We wanted to create some cyclic motion within the music as well, so we did this via the looping arpeggiated synth in the verses, and the layered backing vocal lines in the choruses which create a canon-like effect. We worked on this song with our friend Geo who we produced it with.”
