Song Premiere: Starflake releases single Cuando Tomas (In My Head Again) today

This past summer we met Starflake, the experimental, eponymous band founded and led by The Bright Light Social Hour’s Jackie O’Brien, dubbed “Starflake” by none other than the legendary Jimmy Buffet after giving seven-year-old O’Brien his first guitar lesson.

In June we were treated to the band’s debut single, the tropi-punk synth-sational track “NuBooty.” Since then, Starflake has been hard at work recording their highly anticipated first album (release date tbd) which was partially funded by an anonymous $7,000 donation given for a one-of-a-kind “NuBooty butt print” produced for Flake Fest. The band also recently won a $30,000 grant from the Austin Live Music Fund and headlined Sonic Guild’s Love Your Music Fest 2024.

Now, O’Brien and his long-time collaborative compadres are back with a new song titled “Cuando Tomas (In My Head Again)” and it does not disappoint. Once again O’Brien (vocals, bass, guitar, Roland JX-8P, Wurlitzer) is joined by Zac Catanzaro (drums) and Juan Alfredo Ríos (electronic percussion), delivering a track that swings like a cosmogonic pendulum between the ethereal and the funky.

The song starts with O’Brien’s low, persistent bass riding alongside as Catanzaro drives the snare and high-hat to a pulse-raising rhythm while Rios’ percussion fills in the blanks. As the synth melody hits, O’Brien’s voice hovers over the top for the first verse in a dreamy falsetto before taking on an edge as that crazy Roland JX-8P zooms in on the second verse, giving an addictive out-of-time retro vibe.

O’Brien’s lyrics are, as usual, a poetic expression of his lived experiences. While the first and second verses repeat, the final lines of the song are sung in Spanish: 

Cuando tomas me haces bailar el rock

Cuando tomas me haces bailar el rock

Cuando tomas me haces bailar

Translated, the line says, “When you drink it makes me dance rock.” This lyrical gem came from a rediscovered letter O’Brien had written to his abuelita when he was five-years-old. At the time he found the letter, he’d been struggling to get a handle on his mental health and reading those words after all these years served as a flash of inspiration. “The letter felt like a message from beyond, a well-timed reminder that movement, dancing, living, BEING is the way – get out of the head and into the body. Simple pleasures like music, family, laughter are to be felt viscerally in order to escape the clouded prison of the mind,” he said.

Indeed, if music has any value for us (at any age), it’s to help us remember we are living, breathing, dancing creatures who are from and for this world. “Cuando Tomas” does just that.

“Cuando Tomas (In My Head Again)” is available for streaming now.

• Produced & engineered by Jackie O’Brien @ Escondido Sound, Austin, TX
• Additional engineering by Matt Gerhard
• Mixed by John Zakoor
• Mastered by Curtis Roush
• Cover photo by Hector Martínez

Lyrics:
If you want me
Then you can be gone
If you need me
Then you’d be the only one
To truly know me
You’ll wait to the end
I could be willing to hold on

I don’t wanna go back
I don’t wanna be back
I don’t wanna roll back
In myself
I don’t wanna relive
Everything I regret
I don’t wanna roll back
In myself again
I just wanna be here
Loving on the ether
Feeling on the air vibe in my head
I don’t wanna be there in my head again

If you want me
Then you can be gone
If you need me
Then you’d be the only one
To truly know me
You’ll wait til the end
I could be willing to hold on

I don’t wanna go back
I don’t wanna be back
I don’t wanna roll back
In myself
I don’t wanna relive
Everything I regret
I don’t wanna roll back
In myself again
I just wanna be here
Loving on the ether
Feeling on the air vibe in my head
I don’t wanna be there in my head again

Cuando tomas me haces bailar el rock
Cuando tomas me haces bailar el rock
Cuando tomas me haces bailar

Along with the new single, Starflake has also collaborated with Hermanos Sisters Films and released a video featuring O’Brien, Catanzaro and Ríos jamming in the studio.

Featured photo by Nico Stycos

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