One Million Love Songs [Red Vinyl]

There are one million ways to approach love, one million ways to experience love, one million ways in which love shapes both the course of our lives and how we choose to navigate that course. On her second album, Bnny's Jessica Viscius looks love square in its many eyes and describes, with self-awareness and humor, not only what she sees, but what it makes her feel. Deep romantic love, breathy lust, generous self-love—and their opposites, self-loathing, resentment, disappointment—all make appearances on One Million Love Songs, Bnny's revelatory second album.

Bnny's debut, Everything, was written in the face of tragedy, following the death of Viscius' partner, fellow Chicago musician Trey Gruber. It was a raw, honest album whose songs seemed to emanate from Viscius like a personal climate. Pitchfork called Everything "a beautiful record from wall to wall, comfort food for heartbroken insomniacs." And while those songs have not lost an ounce of their power, performing them every night live across the US and Europe made for a new and different kind of exhaustion. It's hard to access your grief all the time; it's even harder to share it. "I wanted to make songs that are exciting to play—songs that make me feel happy," Viscius says. "This album is about love after loss, getting older, and just trying to have fun with a broken heart."

True to form, One Million Love Songs is a brighter, fuller record that shows Viscius' immense growth as an arranger and artist. "Good Stuff" begins as soft slowcore, with a touch of Echo and the Bunnymen, but as it wakes up, Viscius channels the sunny chords and at-ease '90s charm. "I'm hanging on to the sunshine," she sings, her voice full and rich and carrying both the giddiness that line implies and an awareness of how silly that giddiness can feel.

"Something Blue" rises, sighs, and rests in its own tension, Viscius' voice calm with a self-assured form of acceptance. In "Changes," she hangs a simple lyric on a straightforward melody like a sheet being draped over a clothesline, channeling Mazzy Star and mimicking the soft, gauzy, fresh feeling of realizing you're able to begin it all again with a new person. "So happy I could scream," she sings, and then she does.

One Million Love Songs was recorded in Asheville at Drop of Sun and produced by Viscius alongside Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo De Souza, Snail Mail).

Missing
Good Stuff
Crazy, Baby
Screaming, Dreaming
Sweet
Nothing Lasts
Rainbow
Changes
Get It Right
No One