The first lonely notes of acoustic guitar on “I hope Julien is ok” are enough to tear you open before a single word arrives. If you’ve been hunting emo that lands like arrows straight into your heart — or maybe your lover’s — you’ve landed in the right place.
Out April 16 via Sugar–Free Records, Pob Lwc pairs “I hope Julien is ok” with “Stay Home, Keep Warm” — both written in FACGCE, American Football’s classic emo tuning — and marks Newport’s Laurie Cottingham, better known as the solo project Brightr, returning to view after the release of sophomore LP “Year Two” last summer.
Around 258 days separate the two records, and the short answer for why Cottingham hadn’t put anything out since is that, after more than a decade of touring and releasing music as a solo acoustic emo artist, he came close to stopping.
Here’s how he puts it: “After the brilliant adventures of the summer, autumn not only took the leaves from the trees, it appeared to strip every ounce of the confidence I had felt in my music from, well, always. I felt pointless. I’d hit a wall. After 10 years plus of leading the line for gloomy emo pop, forever plowing forward in the emo acoustic fast lane, the wheels came off.”
Part of that comes from the general weight of being a decade into it — “the hardest thing is relevance, the art of staying relevant in an ever-changing musical climate, hell an ever-changing world” — and the daily admin of life as a working musician. Part of it comes from the specific awkwardness of being a solo emo in a scene mostly built around bands:
“I’ve never been folky or indeed punky enough to fit in with the folk-punks for very long, nor am I singer-songwriterry enough to fit in there (ironically enough probably from being a little too fast, brash and dare I say punk). I’m emo in as much as I write emotionally honest songs, but I’ve always tried to be a bit poppy whilst veering towards the jagged fun world of punk, as well as dabbling with silly tunings and twiddly lead melodies, and of course I’m on my own. I’m a solo emo, so I don’t always fit in with bands and their pedalheavybigsound, even though that’s where I love to be, sandwiched between the loudness, or on first or even last.”
His survival advice after ten years is blunt: “Honesty is key and just straight up ride the rollercoaster, with all its turns and chaos, there’s no room for egos, oh and help out your musical community, there’s no greater feeling than helping other bands/artists, only to then watch as their art soars high and beautiful.”
December brought two shows he credits with restarting him — he won’t name the promoters, just “you know who you are” — alongside the steady support of his wife and kids. He started tuning his guitar to FACGCE and letting his hands “stumble about like an infant again” until something clicked. The songs that surfaced became Pob Lwc — Welsh for good luck.
The other half of the story happened in a car. Cottingham was driving home from a night shift in January when he put on “Appointments” by Julien Baker — solo artist and Boygenius member — and didn’t get through it dry:
“It wasn’t for the brilliance of the songs however (they are outstandingly brilliant) it was to feel something. To be utterly honest this is an album that always makes me cry, like literally bawl my eyes out and I’d been thinking about Julien whilst working, of how she had to step away from music at such a successful time to focus on healing herself. As I listened I cried, sat in traffic crying hard and breaking my heart to the whispering beauty of someone else’s pain, I found myself singing through the tears, I found myself inspired and healing, the brilliant awesome therapy of music all over again. Very soon after I wrote the words to ‘I hope Julien is ok’ and then ‘Stay Home, Keep Warm’ followed.”
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That morning also shifted how he saw “Year Two.” The sadness and rage “bubbling under the surface” had been there the whole time, hidden beneath his “daytime smile and veneer of coping.” “Year Two,” he realised, “hadn’t been the purge I felt it was” — these new songs were.
On what each of the two is about, in his own words: “‘I hope Julien is ok’ is simply an understanding that the vulnerable beauty of someone else’s brilliant art can have such a defining impact. That the connection felt with an artist can be so intense and that the debt of sadness and regrets can feel forever unpaid, lonely even, navigating a life where no one can ever truly understand your personal pain.
‘Stay Home, Keep Warm‘ focuses on the idea of family, on the illusion of safety created by a ‘home’ wherever and whatever that might be for someone. It also touches on the brutal reality of depression and anxiety, the chokehold that threatens to restrict a person’s identity and dim their spark.
Pob Lwc is Welsh, it translates to good luck. I meant for these two songs to be a personal purge for myself, but also a reminder that it’s ok not to feel ok for a bit, just as long as you don’t do it alone. Find comfort in your family, your friends, in the artists you feel connected to even, and don’t forget who you are in the process of it all, because it will get better if you just allow yourself to heal.”
A taste of the words, from “I hope Julien is ok”:
I broke my heart again to whispering lament And for my part in it a debt that never ends A tiring dissonance, the break before the bend Despite endeavour we replace before we mend We hold on
And from “Stay Home, Keep Warm”:
Stay home, keep warm So he lies down The wherewithal Of a life spent alone Stay home, keep warm So she lies down The waste and toll Of a life undergrown
“Year Two,” produced by Matt O’Grady (You Me At Six, Deaf Havana, Don Broco), came out in summer 2025 as the follow-up to debut LP “Year One.” Between the two records, Brightr has logged an abandoned train station in northern Germany, 2000 Trees, The Fest, Manchester Punk Festival, and a long backlog of tours. His live show tends to feel closer to group therapy than a setlist.
UK dates for 2026 so far:
April 25 — McCanns, Newport
May 29 — Bottle Shop, Penarth
July 24 — Pink Moon, Brighton
July 25 — Herofest, Gravesend
September 11 — Ripper Fest, Bournemouth
Pob Lwc is out April 16 on Sugar-Free Records. FFO Into It. Over It., Dashboard Confessional, City & Colour.
Cottingham’s last word on what this release is and isn’t: “In many ways a continuation of brightr, in others a rebirth, but ultimately another piece of the acoustic emo story that I’ve been carving out and will continue to do so until, well, another rubbish autumn I guess, and then see what the musical creation of overcoming that looks like.”
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