Album Stream: Meredith Bragg - Nest

Meredith Bragg isn’t embarrassed to admit that childhood dreams of leading fireside sing-a-longs and refereeing games of capture the flag were what first encouraged the D.C. songwriter to embrace his creative side.

“I wanted to be a camp counselor when I was 10-years old,” says Bragg. “all of the counselors played the guitar, so I felt like that was probably the best way to become one. I never actually became a counselor, but I enjoyed playing the guitar almost immediately. I was really bad at learning other people’s songs, so I started writing my own and playing them for people. I just got better at it as time progressed.”

But years have passed since Bragg first picked up the guitar and lately, life has dealt the singer-songwriter a slew of changes. In addition to celebrating the birth of his daughter and settling down with his family in Northern Virginia, the singer-songwriter is now on the verge of releasing his third full-length LP Nest next week. While it’s impossible not to latch onto the emotion in Bragg’s collection of sleepy and instrumental driven tracks, with lyrics that are as sharp as they are mesmerizing, the artist has consciously restrained himself when it comes to over-injecting the bliss arising from his new role as a father in his music.

“Everything changes,” says Bragg. “Everything shifts and perspectives change and you have to figure out a way to tackle that with your lyrics. That was an important thing to me. Trying to figure out how to not ignore it, because that seemed false. But at the same time, to deal with fatherhood in a way that wouldn’t seem saccharine. I didn’t want to make a children’s record. I wanted to make a record that sort of dealt with the idea of what I was going through for the past two years.”

While Nest won’t be in stores until July 19, you can listen to the entire record via the player below.