Chicago-based group COURSE released their new single “I Called You Late Last Night.” The latest track to release off their upcoming album Tight Feathers (out October 20th), “I Called You Late Last Night” balances a series of delicately contradictory emotions, both buoyant and foreboding.

“This was the first song I wrote on this album and I have been playing it live for a couple years more as a rock song,” said COURSE songwriter/singer/guitarist Jessica Robbins. “I knew I didn’t want it to sound like a rock song on the album and Kyle did an amazing job really getting what I wanted from this song and it’s definitely one of my favorites. This song is a vibe. You feel that calm, and everything is good. You’re with your best friend in a club. Or sitting at home. There’s also a sense of teetering on spinning out of control. But the whole world slows down and everything feels ok.”

The anticipated follow-up to their critically acclaimed debut, COURSE presents a more ornately developed, atmospheric sound to accompany their characteristically narrative anthems. Produced by Nashville indie-electropop wizard Kyle Andrews, each track on Tight Feathers incorporates carefully layered instrumentation (modular synths, analog drum machines, acoustic and electric guitar, bass), blooming with new textures as each musical line unfolds. The album features contributions from a rotating cast of top-tier musicians, most notably vocalist Jamie Semel, who’s ethereal, rich harmonies offer the perfect foil to Robbins’ subtle force.

More elaborate than past COURSE releases, Tight Feathers is laced with sharply written reflections on embracing the chaotic onslaught of life, savoring its complexities, while protecting your inner self. The resulting album demonstrates a particularly relatable kind of existential anxiety—hovering tone-wise between carefree and swamped, happy and overwhelmed, light-as-a-feather and unavoidably ominous. At times, the album drifts into nostalgic territory in the vein of acts like Best Coast or Tennis, but the songs are never saccharine: There remains a familiar hint of anxiety at the root of each track, grounding the music firmly in the modern confusion of the real world.

Photo Courtesy: Savannah Scruggs