girlpuppy, the musical project from the Atlanta, GA, US singer/songwriter Becca Harvey, shares the buzzing, resolute new single ‘Champ‘, the first on new label home, Captured Tracks.
‘Champ’ bursts forth with a wall of fuzzy guitars, and finds Harvey drawing inspiration from Liz Phair, My Bloody Valentine, and Alvvays among others A Fierce hazy cascading wall of sound creates a bed of darkwave riffs for her lush emotionally raw vocals to dance and wash over in this hook-laden shoegaze treasure. The new track was produced by AlexFarrar (Wednesday, MJ Lenderman, Indigo De Souza, Snail Mail, Waxahatchee), and according to Becca Harvey, ‘Champ‘ is the “older sister” to previous single’ Wish’ which appeared on her 2022 debut full-length, When I’m Alone, sharing: “‘It’s happening again, you don’t want to be my friend’ is about once again going through a random friend breakup and never knowing why. It’s basically a plea that no matter how much this friend ignores me and shows me that they don’t want me in their life, I still try because I loved our friendship.”
The release of ‘Champ‘ is accompanied by a video directed by Benni Shumlin and Augie Voss, which stars Harvey during a boxing match.
Becca Harvey shares: “The idea for the ‘Champ’ music video came super easily for me. ‘Champ’ is all about feeling like a loser in a friendship you so desperately want to save. I bought the boxing shorts with ‘girlpuppy’ embroidered on them on Etsy months before we filmed the video, because I knew I’d want the video to be boxing themed. Benni and Augie had a perfect treatment for it and it was so fun getting to work with them. I also recruited my friend Chris Black from my favourite podcast ‘How Long Gone’ to play my deadbeat coach,… It was so fun to work with all of my friends and get all fake bloody and get a nice workout in.”
Speaking about the video, directors Benni and Augie said: “Such a pleasure to work with girlpuppy on the first visual for her sophomore album. Becca had a clear concept – to dive into the classic visual world of a boxing match. We had a ball putting a fun campy twist on it, leaning into the backroom betting, broadcast tv, and blood of fight night with a sprinkle of 90’s inspiration. Like if Rocky Balboa loved glitter and listened to PJ Harvey before the big match? There we go…it’s Indie-Rock-y…(sorry!)”
Becca Harvey made her girlpuppy debut in 2020 with the lo-fi guitar pop single, “For You”, followed by the self-described “sad girl” indie of 2021’s Swan EP. In 2022, “I Miss When I Smelled Like You”, the Atlanta-based singer and songwriter’s foray into ‘70s-indebted arena pop, saw her team up for a one-off with Doug Schadt (Maggie Rogers). Her expansive 2022 full length debut, When I’m Alone, was recorded with Alex G guitarist Sam Acchione and engineered and mixed by Slow Pulp’s Henry Stoehr,
girlpuppy has also toured extensively both headlining and supporting the likes of DIIV, Nation of Language, Sloppy Jane, Becca Mancari, Hovvdy, Whitmer Thomas, and Matt Maltese among others, and has made festival appearances including Shaky Knees, Latitude Festival, and Riot Fest. Becca is currently in the US, with her next confirmed show in her hometown Atlanta, GA on January 25th for the third annual Abortion Access Benefit. More info and tickets HERE.
Photo credit: Tonje Thilesen
