Strawberry Runners - Strawberry Runners (2023)

The musical project of Emi Night (they/them), Strawberry Runners has existed in some form since 2013, capitalizing on their early acclaim with the releases of the 2015 tape Hatcher Creek and the 2017 EP In the Garden, In the Night; Night's songs have garnered acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, Stereogum, FLOOD, Wired, and NPR among others. From there, the journey which has led to Strawberry Runners has been a long and arduous one.

Night began writing these songs in the midst of a traumatic upheaval. Shortly after leaving a long-term relationship, they received news of a sibling's attempted suicide. In the wake of these events, Night navigated a period of depression while living unhoused in a new city. In time they found resilience in friendship and community, and formed a safe and steady home. Night began hosting monthly 'song shares' at their house, inviting musicians to workshop unfinished songs, a creative task that propelled a fruitful period of creation. Buoyed by the energy in their renewed spirit and growing community, Night set to work completing their album.

Night writes folk and pop songs with lyricism exploring topics of grief, trauma, and growth. A survivor of childhood abuse, Night is committed to destigmatizing conversations about the complex entanglement of love, power, and control within relationships, as well as the lasting effects of trauma.

Diverging from earlier incarnations, Strawberry Runners is reborn and blooms anew with their eponymous debut record. Night's contemplative magic was produced in collaboration with Michael Cormier-O'Leary (Dear Life Records, Friendship, Hour) between a handful of home and professional studios across the northeast, lending necessary flexibility to the album's overall recording process, the final product of which transcends its varied origins.

The album was arranged in collaboration with co-producer, Cormier-O'Leary, as well as an all-star lineup of players: Benedict Kupstas (Field Guides), Bradford Krieger (Big Nice Studio), Erika Nininger, Galen Passen, Heather Jones (Ther, So Big Auditory), Santi Slade, and Stephen Becker.

Night's compositions for ‘Strawberry Runners’ navigate themes of heartbreak, solitude, and belonging on the terrain of pop, folk, and country-reminiscent instrumentation. Their voice's ASMR-inducing textures melt into syrupy harmonized refrains, creating the album's alluring, bristling warmth. Amid the unfolding landscape of familiar yet abstract arrangements, Night wields the heavy lyrical material of failure, grief, and uncertainty with grace and disarming candor.

A colorful and gleaming album, even with the weight of the subject matter in every breath, the self-titled LP is a new visionary adventure for Strawberry Runners. The beguiling ‘Slip Through’ sings to the experience of grappling for control and failing boldly. Opening in delicacy, it soon folds in on itself, the distorted production flourishes that eventually consume it, nodding to the two most recent Low albums.

Elsewhere, the closing track ‘Circle Circle’ - inspired by the music of Virginia Astley - opens with a playful scattered synth line before growing more full-bodied. The off-kilter nature of the music is juxtaposed with Emi’s enchantingly human voice. While the three minutes of ‘Breakup 2’ unfurl mesmerizingly, a plaintive but emotive voice is set against a spiraling composition that blossoms with beauty and intrigue in equal measure. “‘Breakup 2’ is the song that gave me clarity on the scope of the record,” Cormier O’Leary says. “It sounds singular and unique, a new kind of song I haven’t really heard before. Night's vocal performance is so powerful. It’s the one that I think encapsulates the entire sonic palette of the record.”

Full of life and heart and plenty of hurt, Strawberry Runners often sparkles on its surface, but peel the layers away, and you will find an untamed reckoning with the world and oneself. Touching upon grief, growth, and exaltation, their music, in its own considered and immeasurable manner, imparts crucial questions and life lessons with captivating insight and powerful poignance.