Singer-songwriter Beetlebug is cultivating an online community, welcomingly beckoning newcomers into a world rich with wistful melodies, gentle acoustics and heart-warming tales of self-discovery, growing up, youthful nostalgia and navigating the world with an open mind and an open heart.
The first seeds of that following have already sprouted, resulting in 100,000+followers at YouTube, 15 million streams at Spotify, and shows with the likes of Lovejoy, Henry Moodie and The Vamps. Now Beetlebug shares the new single ‘until the end’ as she prepares to release her debut EP in 2024.
Beetlebug brings some comforting warmth to the autumn months with ‘until the end’. It’s a song of quiet, delicate beauty as Beetlebug weaves her sweetly sincere vocal melodies around gentle ukulele as she imagines witnessing “a lonely pilgrim looking for their merry band.” If you’re new to Beetlebug’s artistry, this provides a perfectly introductory snapshot to her spellbinding charms, and if you’re already a devotee, you can readily hear the progression she has made since her previous release, 2022’s ‘the lepidopterist’.
Speaking of which, after a break of almost 18 months without a release, fans have shared their excitement for new music from Beetlebug with one describing an early teaser of the song as “beautiful, it sounds like a warm spring morning.” Beetlebug - also known as Auri - says, “‘until the end’ is one of the first songs i wrote at the initial conception of this EP, as its shape was first forming - a joyous, penultimate closure that begins the conclusion with a lust and love for simply existing; a shard of warmth after the melancholy, that lifts gently into the final song of the project.”
Beetlebug will celebrate the release of ‘until the end’ by playing her first ever London headline show at The Courtyard Theatre on December 9th - limited tickets are available. Earlier this year she played select festivals including The Great Escape and Live At Leeds, the latter of which prompted Louder Than War’s review to describe her as “a truly beautiful soul.”
An artist from nowhere in particular, music has always been an integral part of Beetlebug’s life. It was there when she was a child, singing Katie Melua songs when she was just four-years-old, and it’s now one of the most essential elements of her existence.
It’s something you can palpably see within her expression as she performs her takes on songs from diverse artists from Beabadoobee and Maya Hawke to Kate Bush and Radiohead. Her influences are similarly eclectic: Gorillaz, Jack Johnson, Nat King Cole, Haley Heynderickx, Mac De Marco and Adrianne Lenker/Big Thief to name but a few.
Her own songs are the product of her singular, esoteric style, often using her love for, say, gardening or cats as a metaphor for tender romance. While all of Beetlebug’s tracks to date were released entirely independently, ‘until the end’ represents her first release under a new deal with MNRK (The Lumineers, Gregory Alan Isakov, Loving).
