Porridge Radio Sign to Secretly Canadian, Release New Single “Lilac”

Brighton quartet Porridge Radio have signed to Secretly Canadian and released their first music for the label. Their new track “Lilac” follows two other singles from earlier this year: “Give/Take” and “Don’t Ask Me Twice.” The band will make their U.S. live debut at SXSW in the spring.

“Lilac” also comes with a seaside video directed by El Hardwick and starring lead singer Dana Margolin. The song is a surrender to the uncertainty of love, and a reaffirmation that its messy realities are worth trying to parse. Against warbled guitars, ascendant strings and marching drums, Margolin screams into the void, “I can never seem to find it,” with the kind of passionate exhaustion that sounds like she’s ready to throw herself into the sea. Despite feeling stuck, she ultimately reaches the conclusion that if kindness and love aren’t noble causes, then nothing is noble. “I don’t want to get bitter, I want us to get better,” Margolin sings as she sides with humans’ better nature and delivers one of the most intense vocal performances of the year. The strings and guitars cry out and match Margoli’s existential urgency, resulting in a late song of the year contender.

“I wanted to find some power in powerlessness,” says Margolin. “I was thinking about love and control and the things out of my control, and how fragile and incapable depression can make you feel. I was thinking about the way you can feel so close to someone that it’s like their body is your body, like there’s no separation between you, but you can’t stop things disintegrating. It’s a song about finding some hope and some future within that.”

Watch “Lilac” and check out Porridge Radio’s upcoming tour dates below.

Porridge Radio 2020 Tour Dates:

January
14 – London, U.K. @ The Lexington

February
27-29 – Oslo, Norway @ Larm Festival

March
13-22 – Austin, Texas @ SXSW
28 – Bristol, U.K. @ Ritual Union Festival

May
22-24 – Totnes, U.K. @ Sea Change Festival