Born after years of searching and longing, Birthday Suit by Samuel Nicholson serves as a self-portrait and a love letter to someone who has recently been diagnosed with autism.
Nicholson says this on the album,
The record is a dysfunctional self-portrait of my life at a time when I was falling deeply in love. Having previously gathered that I am not easy to love, I began to write these songs as a way of warning this person about my nature, and a way of being realistic about my ability to love and support another human being at that time.
Creating the album and being in a relationship, Nicholson said he began to experience severe and frequent panic attacks. His search for the source of these led to his medical diagnosis as autistic.
The more I wrote, the more I found power in my mistakes, and the more I committed to making the record as honest as possible. I loved the idea of writing an album that rejected the odd ritual we adopt of disguising our flaws and malice when we’re trying to find a soulmate, and instead found power in honesty and candour.
Birthday Suit follows his debut album If You Be My (2015) and Missing Persons Report (2020) and is an insightful look at one’s soul. Built on the foundations of learning about one’s self and how to breathe by just being, Birthday Suit also celebrates love in all the quirkiness we as individuals bring to a relationship.
What Samuel Nicholson has created with Birthday Suit isn’t just a self-portrait and a love letter, it’s acknowledgement and representation. It’s a musical map on how to say hello and I love you to the person who’s staring back at you in the mirror.
Find Birthday Suit at Bandcamp on June 9th.
MUST LISTEN TRACKS: “Gummi”, “Birthday Presents Forever”
FAVOURITE TRACKS: “Gummi”
