Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler released their collaborative EP brent in 2019, and two years later have collaborated again to create the sequel brent ii. ‘It honestly did not feel right to end our journey together after ‘brent’, and Chelsea and I always knew we would extend the project to a sequel,’ said Zucker.  In fact, the pair define ‘brent’ as more than just music –  it is ‘its own unique feeling. A quiet place away from the dizziness of the city. A Thoreau-inspired stripped-down version of life, one spent with friends who truly care for one another. A home away from home’.

Lo-fi melancholic sounds and emotional lyricism run throughout this whole EP, which is first seen in the opening track and lead single ‘this is how you fall in love’. With its delicate melody, soft strings, and gentle vocals, the song explores falling in love unconditionally. They sing ‘We turn off the phones to just be alone’ and ‘You’ll be my best friend until we grow old.’ An official music video accompanies this song, which is a beautifully stripped back sequence of film camera footage. Through doing this, Zucker and Cutler are able to perfectly capture the serenity and contentment that they sing about in this song, and which they associate with the feeling of ‘brent.’

A smooth transition then takes us onto the second track of this EP, ‘parent song,’ which continues with the minimalistic melody. This song explores the changing dynamics between parents and their children, specifically focussing on the time when a child grows up and moves out of home. The lyrics ‘So you might have to see me less / But it’s nice to have somebody to miss’ excellently captures the idea of how a child growing up can be both sad and exciting for a parent.

Briefly leaving the sweet lo-fi sounds and the idyllic world of love behind, the third track ‘emily’ uses a more up-beat tempo and more prominent strings to explore the darker side of love. They sing ‘Then I’ll fight with your friends and I’ll trash your apartment / I’ll lie to you, screaming, ‘I’d die for you’ / Knowing how hard it’ll be to get back where we started.’ Without a doubt this song forms the perfect contrast to the opening track ‘this is how you fall in love,’ highlighting two very different periods of time in a relationship.

Returning back to the lo-fi soundscape, the EP then concludes with two solo tracks from Zucker and Cutler. The fourth track is ‘brooklyn Boy’ by Jeremy Zucker, which is an emotionally confessional song in which Zucker reveals his feelings of loneliness and dejection. Zucker himself says that that ‘this is definitely a quarantine-pandemic song. A lot of the song is me building up this fantasy in my head of how I envision my life to be, and feeling frustrated that I can’t be that…I can’t even go outside.’ Chelsea Cutler then finishes the EP off with her vulnerable song ‘the stars’, in which she reflects on a recent heart-break. Through the repeated lyrics of ‘It’s ’cause the stars said so,’ she questions whether or not their love was ever really meant to be.

There’s no doubt that Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler have poured their hearts and souls into brent ii, revealing their most vulnerable sides. To me, listening to this EP offers the same cathartic feeling you get from listening to a rainstorm. It is clear, then, that Zucker and Cutler have perfectly encapsulated the feeling of ‘brent’ in this EP, and that it will offer many people the escapism that they need during the pandemic.

Rating: 9/10

brent ii is available now via Republic Records

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