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Our Violet Room’s “Falling” Details Heartbreak in an Upbeat, Indie-Rock Form

With indie rock sensibilities and thoughtful candour, Our Violet Room’s “Falling” is a deceivingly upbeat song about the pain of heartbreak.

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With indie rock sensibilities and thoughtful candour, Our Violet Room’s “Falling” is a deceivingly upbeat song about the pain of heartbreak. “Falling,” which is the fifth single released in anticipation for Our Violet Room’s (Matthew Birch) debut album, shares the details of a crumbled relationship. Singing through his emotions, Birch is honest about where he’s at after the breakup. He bares all his confusion and pain upfront and attempts to deal with it.

He explains that the song was about “talking [himself] through the end of a relationship,” and by engaging in “self-talk” through the song, he was able to move on. In the chorus, he sings, “So let the past be past and move ahead to the dreams that you have dreamt inside your head. You say that I’m falling, and I’m falling over you.” Despite this being his most upbeat indie-rock song, Birch doesn’t derive from the cinematic twist characteristic of his music. In the bridge, right when it sounds like the song might end, Birch brings listeners back in with the sound of horns and driving percussion. In this way, it’s as if he’s sonically signalling a brighter future in which he can move forward from the pain.

While he repeats the chorus once more, there’s a change in tone to what Birch is singing as he admits in the end that although he was falling, now he’s “here to say, I’m over you.” Finding empowerment and a new stride, the song ends on a positive and peaceful note. “Falling” is the fifth track off of Birch’s upcoming debut album, Not Where I Thought I’d Be. The 7-track album chronologically details the story of a relationship from its bright beginnings to its bitter end.

A deep love of movie scores and the composers that made them, alongside an admiration and passion for folk music, is the base of the music that Birch creates under the moniker Our Violet Room. An “indie singer-songwriter with a cinematic twist,” Birch got his musical start in 2018 by playing SoFar Sound shows – first in Denver but soon all over the world. A humble story of overcoming depression, working hard, and diving headfirst into his dream, Birch only has one goal…. to make thoughtful, well-made, emotional art that inspires his listeners and causes them to feel.

Cover art for “Falling” by Our Violet Room

His music has been compared to the likes of Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, and Coldplay for its lush atmosphere, emotional lyrics, and cinematic arrangements and has quickly launched his music career with two songs featured on FreeForm’s Good Trouble series and two songs featured in a Magnolia feature film. “Making movie scores has been a dream of mine, and to look at each song as a little movie score has been a great way of creating,” says Birch. Thus far in his career, Birch has released two EPs – Our Violet Room and the live EP Loss and Death in Winter – alongside a handful of singles.

Mixing folk and cinematic soundscapes seem to be working for the emerging artist, as his songs have a combined 500,000 streams. “ I don’t go for cool or hip; I go for what moves me.”

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