Common Holly

Holding fast to the emotional honesty of Playing House (2017), Brigitte Naggar's sophomore record as Common Holly, When I say to you Black Lightning, is a look outward; an exploration of the ways in which we all experience pain, fear and self-delusion, and how we can learn to confront those feelings with boldness. When I say to you Black Lightning feels like Naggar's conversation with herself, meticulously penned to work through challenges as they unfold. It's cool, and more than that, it feels important. It's about finding the seeds of strength to navigate adult life, and about the ways in which we all find ourselves in that place of struggle when life starts to show you its cards and you begin to understand, in the artist's words, "just how real shit can get."

In July of 2021, Common Holly emerged from pandemic isolation to release a two-track single, "Preoccupy / The Moon" — "Preoccupy" starts as a simple acoustic folk lullaby but soon ascends into an uncanny duet between Naggar's guitar and an analog modem attempting to connect.