New single "Little Circles" from sparkle*jets u.k. out now from Big Stir Records
Big Stir Records and sparkle*jets u.k. proudly bring you the latest single from the band's latest album BOX OF LETTERS: “Little Circles”, a beautiful and timely ballad of yearning for compassion and community in an overwhelmingly indifferent world. In addition to being available on the band's acclaimed new album (out now on Vinyl, CD and Streaming), the track sees standalone release accompanied by an all-new video on August 9 on all platforms, and is up for pre-order and pre-save now:
https://orcd.co/sjuk-littlecircles
As an album, BOX OF LETTERS is a bravura showcase for both of sparkle*jets u.k.'s lead vocalists – check out SUSAN WEST's commanding turns on the single “Box Of Letters” and the delightful alt-rock throwback “Love Burn” – and of all the sublime singing MICHAEL SIMMONS does across its two sides, his performance on the aching “Little Circles” may just be his finest. It's certainly heartbreakingly sincere: “We’re all just hoping that someone will notice... Say something beautiful, something that’s wanted,” he croons over a chord sequence recalling the tenderest moments of Big Star or Teenage Fanclub, “Ah, but we're nothing special, except in our own little circles.” It's a thoroughly relatable and crucial plea for a disengaged populace to find value in friendship, and meaning in creation. The 2024 lineup of SJUK, including bassist JAMIE KNIGHT and drummer JOEL VALDER, plays it with the commitment it demands, and the backing vocals from West and TISHA BOONYAWATANA open up the choruses with perfect empathy. The scale of it all is aptly illustrated in the song's new video (premiering one day before the single's street date).
It may be the pitch-perfect anthem that the world of 2024 needs, but its origins go back nearly two decades, as Simmons explains. “It's a song about how we are all basically just specks of bug poop in the grand scheme of things, and that we better just keep our heads down and love each other. That's how I felt when I wrote it just after the turn of the century, and it’s still my philosophy. We worry about so much pointless crap in this life, but all we have is each other and the choices we make in that regard. As far as the song goes, I had a really rough acoustic demo which I brought to the band and we built the arrangement together. I recently found a version of this marked ‘Mix 1’ that’s basically a live-in-studio full band recording I didn’t even know existed. The final version is very close to that original.”
As fresh and timely as the song feels, “Little Circles” has been a jaw-dropping staple of the sparkle*jets u.k. live set from the time it was written to the present, becoming more and more relevant with each passing year. Fans who've been waiting patiently to hit wax have been rewarded at last with its debut on BOX OF LETTERS, but perhaps even more important, as it hits the airwaves and playlists as a single, is that fans worldwide – outside of SJUK's own little circle – will be able to connect with its message at last. “My God, please show them some mercy, show them that all of us live just hoping that someone will notice”... there's no doubt that they will be noticed, and that the song itself will be a point of connection. Overcoming isolation has never been more essential, nor has it ever sounded so glorious. If this is sparkle*jets u.k.'s year at last, “Little Circles” is their invitation for you to be a part of it.
