MUMBAI: Acclaimed indie pop singer-songwriter and “bittersweet optimist” Fiji Blue (aka Trevor Dering) announces the release date and tracklist for his long-awaited debut album, 'Glide'.  Dedicated to his wife Natasha, who is currently battling brain cancer, the 11-track project is rich with achingly personal yet universally relatable anecdotes on love and loss, both platonic and romantic.

Alongside the album announcement, Fiji Blue shares the album’s third single “Start Over”, following previous singles “Peppermint” and “Angel”. The track was written during a period of personal transition and focuses on the adjustments necessary after the end of a relationship. “It’s about feeling stuck in the middle trying to process all these intense feelings at the same time,” shares Fiji Blue.

This summer, Fiji Blue played some of his biggest festivals yet, including SummerFest in Milwaukee, Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, and headlining Wicker Park Fest in Chicago. In August, he performed at Summer Sonic in Tokyo and Lalala Festival in Jakarta. This November, he’ll kick off his Asia tour with stops in Singapore, Taipei, Manila, and Hong Kong.

Fiji Blue Asia Tour 2024

November 21 – Singapore – Gateway Theatre

November 23 – Taipei City, Taiwan – Clapper Studio

November 29 – Manila – Samsung Hall

November 30 – Hong Kong – Clockenflap Festival

Fiji Blue finds creative solitude in the mixture of guitar-heavy storytelling, drawing inspiration from artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan & John Mayer. After accumulating over 300 million streams across three EPs—'Reasons You Should Care' (2021), 'Goodbye' (2021) and 'I Loved You, What Happened?' (2022)—'Glide' is Fiji Blue’s first proper album.

“This album was written during a period of personal transition,” he explains. “There’s a lot of adjustment that comes with dealing with the end of relationships, feeling stuck in the middle trying to process all these intense feelings at the same time…It was like starting from scratch, both emotionally and in terms of writing songs themselves.”

To tell the stories on the forthcoming album, Fiji Blue decamped to Topanga for a weeklong writing retreat, penning a song a day and getting lost in lush production – an ascendant helium balloon of synths, skittering electronics, and widescreen harmonies cut with the warm humanity of more organic instrumentation like piano and acoustic guitar.

There’s palatable emotion reverberating through every note, chord, and melody of 'Glide', balancing both the pain and affection that inspired them. At its most heartbreaking, it’s a rumination on those who never really leave us, the faint imprints that linger long after lives go their separate ways; at its most uplifting – the emotions Dering prefers to focus on – it’s rich with gratitude for his friends and family, a future full of hope and possibility.
 
'Glide' Tracklisting

1. Angel
2. Adjust
3. Start Over
4. June
5. Peppermint
6. Where Do I Begin?
7. Shadow of You
8. One Last Time
9. Never Get Old
10. Pink
11. Beautiful
Stream "Start Over" here
Pre-save the album 'Glide' here