appleby shares stunning ‘While You Were Sleeping’ EP via WILDER
LA-via-Chicago artist, appleby, today shares his While You Were Sleeping EPvia WILDER Records, the joint venture from Future Classic (Flume, G Flip, Buzzy Lee) and Tom Windish (founder of Windish Agency). This is the first EP from WILDER since their home run of singles that have come out since spring 2020.
Listen to the EP – full of love felt fully for the first time, brimming with joy and nods to pop, R&B, electronic, soul, and hip-hop – HERE.
Of the new release appleby shares, “The birth of ‘While You Were Sleeping’ came during a three week trip apart from the girl I love. I was back home in Elgin, Illinois, staying in the bedroom I wrote my first songs in, while she was in Jamestown, Rhode Island, visiting family. Nearly every night we’d FaceTime till sunrise then say our goodbyes in the AM. Halfway through my trip I began muting myself while she slept. The first song I made was ‘You’re My Home.’ I was obsessed with how warm and nostalgic it felt. The next evening I wrote ‘Enough,’ and when I said good morning to my girlfriend the next day I knew those two songs were the beginning of my next EP.”
While You Were Sleeping is brimming with optimism; overflowing with the butterfly feelings that chosen family gives you as well as the love and acceptance of the family you’re born into. Clean, unpretentious, Postal-Service-like production booms as appleby’s gentle but effective, beautiful voice floats over with his words that bloomed in the middle of the night, when secrets can be told, unbothered by the perception of day – like a dream. That’s not to say that the EP doesn’t also shine; the most recent single “Enough”, for instance, is absolutely bursting with summer heat and excitement.
A former tennis star, appleby was traveling to compete internationally by the age of 12. After leaving the sport behind as a young adult, he found catharsis in music: pouring his heart into his craft, singing honestly about struggle, vulnerability, love, and melding together elements of pop, R&B, electronic, soul, and hip-hop. Purposefully releasing his first few singles as a faceless enigma with a very DIY approach (recording with a hundred-dollar USB mic out of a box-sized bedroom), the mystery singer garnered praise from Majestic Casual, Complex, and more for singles like “Castles,” “Young Lost Love” and his feature on Ravyn Lenae’s breakout single “Free Room.”
appleby’s debut 2018 Happiness EP has garnered millions of streams, landed spots on both TV & film, and his career as a musician has won him praise from the likes of Flood, Ones To Watch, Complex, Lyrical Lemonade, HypeBeast, Elevator, and more.
While You Were Sleeping by appleby is out now via WILDER, listen/buy it here.
Tracklist
1. You’re My Home
2. Enough
3. Heavy Metal Spaceship
4. Half Life
5. Navy Blue
6. HEAT