Not sure how they pulled it off but somehow Kira Leyden and Jeff Andrea, the husband-and-wife duo in Akron's the Strange Familiar, managed to write material for a new album and have their first child. The album, The Day The Light Went Out, isn’t due out until April but the two have just released a video for the first single, “Rain,” which comes out today.
“It’s a little more intense and darker than what we’ve done before,” Leyden says of the forthcoming album. “It all fits well together. It’s a journey and about struggle. We have gone through a lot of stuff in the last year.”
The version of “Rain” you hear in the video is actually different than the version that will be on the album. At the label’s request, the group recorded an acoustic version with strings to serve as a teaser for the album. A music video featuring the single that appears on the album is forthcoming.
“We invited some friends and stripped the song back,” Andrea says. “We focused on the song and what we do best. It was recorded live. We did it in two takes.”
Leyden says she wrote the song, a ballad about their daughter Raine, while she was still pregnant.
“I sat down on afternoon and starting thinking about it,” she says. “I started writing a poem about her. We were just talking about what it was going to be like. That’s where the song came from. It applies to a broader audience too and it’s about what makes life worth living.”
The band performs at Musica on March 28 when it opens for singer-songwriter Anna Nalick.
