With a brand new week setting in and our inboxes steadily filling with emails, it is fair to say that we are all desiring a break already. Well, indie-pop duo, Dust in the Sunlight, are here with a tranquil new cut to bless your Monday afternoon in a bid to quell any stresses from the working day. Dropping “Handful of Water”, Annie and Billy of the group team up once more to lend their emotion-flooded sound to the track, which marries perfectly with the classical instrumentation that features.

When discussing their latest release, Annie explained, “It was actually the first song we wrote when we returned to London from the first UK lockdown. We’d been apart for three months and felt very ready to write some new music! We’d both been brushing up our production skills during that time, so quickly started laying down ideas for guitar, synth parts and vocal harmonies. I think the songwriting and pre-production all came together in a matter of days. We then took it into the studio with Tom Donovan and added live horns, drums and cello. The track came out feeling really warm and cinematic.”

Upon the release of “Handful of Water”, Annie and Billy of Dust in the Sunlight sat down with Wonderland to discuss their beginnings in Southend and how pandemic-induced separation sparked the creation of their latest single.

Head below to enjoy our conversation with Dust in The Sunlight…

Hey guys! How are you? How has this past year been for you?
Annie: Hey! We’re good, thank you. It’s been a bit of a stop and start year, but it’s felt really good to play live shows and release new music again.

With everything that happened during the pandemic has your creativity been affected in any way?
Billy: After getting over the initial weirdness of everything, we both kind of became obsessed with Ableton. I’d watch tutorials for 7 hours solidly. Music became a bit of a haven, to be honest. With regards to writing lyrics, it was the ultimate challenge – with fewer things happening, where do you get inspiration from? We both turned inwards, towards our pasts and also thought about bigger ideas. I think you can hear that in the new E.P

How did you both first meet? What sparked the interest?
A: We met at a recording studio in Southend as session singers and instantly clicked – our voices immediately melded together and we wrote two songs together that evening.

You both have different inspirations, how do you go about being collaborative?
B: Our songs usually form with individual ideas and then we bring them together, and it becomes something else. With “Handful Of Water”, I had the middle eight lyrics knocking around for a few years and the part, “in the gap between our heartbeats, written on the pavement of our old street, our names are fading out,” was only finished during that first lockdown.

You’ve just released your new single “Handful of Water”, what was the creative process like?
A: It was actually the first song we wrote when we returned to London from the first UK lockdown. We’d been apart for three months and felt very ready to write some new music! We’d both been brushing up our production skills during that time, so quickly started laying down ideas for guitar, synth parts and vocal harmonies. I think the songwriting and pre-production all came together in a matter of days. We then took it into the studio with Tom Donovan and added live horns, drums and cello. The track came out feeling really warm and cinematic.

It’s about how life is too short and things that go wrong in relationships, what made you focus on this?
A: I think the lockdowns made a lot of people stop and think about what they really want in life, and who’s important. So it’s definitely drawing on that idea to stop dwelling and start living each moment as much as you can.

What do you hope people take away from your sound?
A: I think our voices and the way they interact is the thing that hits most people – humans love vocal harmony. I think there’s something quite primal in that. We also want to tell stories through the songs and build worlds around that with the music, so I’d like to think it has that kind of visual and emotive effect.

It’s taken from your EP “Same World, Different Eyes”, what can you tell us about the EP? What can we expect?
B: It’s a much bigger sound than our first E.P. We spent a lot of time working on the demos with the intention of getting more musicians involved during the final recording. Lyrically, the ideas are bigger as well – the title track “Same World, Different Eyes” is the state of the world at the moment. It’s a song I could imagine playing over the final scene of a nuclear apocalypse movie. But it is hopeful, I promise!

Comparing this to your first EP in 2020, what would you say is the main difference?
A: ‘Same World, Different Eyes’ is much warmer, bigger and collaborative. I think the songwriting is more outward-facing too – most of the songs are about trying to see things from different perspectives and finding common ground.

What are you most excited about? What’s next?
B: Recording our album and playing shows over the summer. Possibly a tour with our friends Koya. It’s beginning to feel normal again?!