Bryndon Cook, releases music as Starchild & The New Romantic. The musician and songwriter has spent much of this time touring and collaborating with Solange on her Seat at the Table tour, which included performances across the globe at a variety of museums and unique venues. All while doing this, Cook signed to Ghostly International, released his debut EP Crucial (2016).

Cook’s debut full length Language, comes out February 23rd via Ghostly. Today, he is sharing the brand-new single “Can I Come Over?”. The song shows Starchild at his most vulnerable, “Will you even care if I came over?” Cook asks in a shamelessly sly voice to his lover on the other end of the phone. The song continues in the theme of telecommunication from the rest of the album while dialing in on Cook’s world of celebrated sensitivity.

“Black boys have a whole world of complexity that society makes us stomp out of ourselves.” Language communicates Cook’s refusal to do so. Describing himself early-on as a “young romantic boy from Maryland,” he’s long been a dreamer, a student of black music’s rich lineage and its intersection with pop. Cook is drawn to landmark moments where artists have found truth in darkness; the diverse language of music living in their core. These records in which phrases and motifs are deployed to document worth and define perspective, identity, calls to action. The pop album as artistic statement, as thesis. This record is his; lifting off from the monochrome world of Crucial, his 2016 EP on Ghostly International, up towards a dazzling blood-rush of sky-high defiance and autonomy. On Language, Cook refines his phonics for funk, electro, and R&B, and arrives at a revelation, best summarized by a single motto: “my sensitivity is my strength.”

“When I wrote these songs, the sunshine of my mind was beginning to set in a dark place. I found myself developing almost a surrogate relationship with my telephone. I would fall asleep at night clutching it, waiting for a call. When we parted, I would become attached to my phone as a conduit to this person I had lost. Melodies came to me all over the world. Quite often, hooks and choruses, which were catchy to me and distracted my mind from the immense, earth-shattering pain I was being railroaded through.”

Cook finds guidance in grand standards: looking up to producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, studying their contributions to the New Jack Swing era and pop music at large. Touchstone statements like Janet Jackson’s Control, Michael Jackson’s Bad, and Prince’s 1999. Singular breakout LPs from Terence Trent D’Arby and Bobby Brown. The honesty of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and Carole King’s Tapestry; the ingenuity of Laurie Anderson. Cook also reflects on recent years with Solange, as part of her touring band, and collaborations with DevHynes aka Blood Orange, as reminders of artistic individuality. “Being around them now urges me to find my own way of delivering my own messages.”

Starchild & The New Romantic
Language
Ghostly International

01. Language
02. Mood
03. Only If U Knew
04. Hands Off

05. Hangin On
06. Black Diamond
07. Ophelia’s Room
08. Some People I Know
09. Can I Come Over?
10. Doubts
11. Good Stuff
12. Boys Choir
13. Lost Boys
14. Hand To Go