Bees and Bees and Bees is an intensely personal album full of candor and heart, chronicling more than a decade of Brandi’s life as she learns to navigate adulthood. It is both lighthearted and earnest, including melodic pop of the handclaps-and-harmonies variety but also spare acoustic ballads that will break your heart and then put it back together again.

Several songs on the album provide a window into Brandi’s struggles with anxiety and depression, whether laid bare or couched in self-deprecating humor—the title track, for example, paints an evocative picture of a person attempting to outrun her vicious inner voice as if it were a swarm of bees, and Little Tiny deals with self-imposed isolation: “And I think that I can see you from my window, and I think I hear you call. But I go and get my toolbox and my trowel and I build another wall.” Even Stupid Boyfriend, while catchy and playful on the surface, contains an underlayer of insecurity and self-defeat.

Songs like Count to Three, I’ll Keep You Warm, and Linoleum, on the other hand, reflect Brandi’s path out of those darker times, harnessing feelings of joy, hope, and childlike wonder. A love song that applies just as easily to friendship and togetherness as it does to romance, Count to Three is a salient reminder of the strength we can draw from emotional bonds. “If you count to three, I’ll be there with you. You can count on me to take care of you. Just remember these words I said to you: if you think it’s gonna be great, it’s gonna be great, it’s gonna be great.”

Bees and Bees and Bees was produced by Brandi Ediss and Frank Padellaro (King Radio, Scud Mountain Boys) with Ken Maiuri (Pedro the Lion, Mark Mulcahy, The B-52s). It was mixed by Mark Alan Miller (Lloyd Cole, Pernice Brothers, Erin McKeown) and mastered by TW Walsh (Sufjan Stevens, Ben Gibbard, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats). Released May 2020, the album has so far earned praise from indie pop heavy-hitters like Chris Collingwood (Fountains of Wayne, Look Park), AC Newman (The New Pornographers), Philip B. Price (Winterpills), and Scott Klass (The Davenports), as well as a number of reviewers, who have described the album as “superb,” “evocative and inspiring,” “a breath of fresh air,” and “an incredible debut from a fantastically gifted singer-songwriter.”

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