Today, Montreal-based singer-songwriter Brigitte Naggar (aka Common Holly) is releasing her highly anticipated new album, Anything glass, via Keeled Scales and Paper Bag Records.
Naggar describes the record as "intimate, full of silence and space, warm, gentle, and sometimes spiky." Across its tracks, she explores an impressive range of genres and moods, showcasing her masterful songwriting, musicianship, and storytelling.
With influences like Bill Callahan, Mount Eerie, Lomelda, and Leonard Cohen, Naggar draws inspiration from artists who "make the personal feel universal, but also songwriters that conjure a world around their work." Her first single, "Aegean blue," earned her early praise from Pitchfork and Stereogum. That track was followed by the quirky and playful vulnerability of “Enough,” and “Terrible hands,” a delicate, piano-driven jazz-pop fusion. No two Common Holly songs sound alike—each explores a different emotional texture—yet they’re united by Naggar’s intimate, transformative approach, often grounded in the gentle weight of a piano melody.
In her own words, Naggar explains, Anything glass is, "A dedication to all that is beautiful and fragile. Anything glass will contain us, and anything glass will break. My third offering, my third way of connecting to myself and others, my third round of question-asking. These songs tell the story of a passage through stumbling and into calm—not a resolution but a natural cycle, and part of a series of forever recurring cycles."
Anything glass arrives today alongside focus track, "The wood from the sail," a cinematic and delicate piece of lyrical imagery that unfolds like an apocalyptic folklore tale. Grappling with themes like the acceptance of finality and the relentless force of mother nature, Naggar offers a moment of calm resolve—a soft, inviting space that reflects the spirit of the album as a whole. Naggar on the track, "There's a few characters in this song: references to Mother Nature, Elliot Smith, and a reprise from the Planet Earth (who makes a few appearances on this record). The song is a final celebration before the end of times, in a woozy bonfire at the beach. Alex Rand makes his fretless bass solo debut, layered over the battle of dissonant flutes between Devon Bate and Alex, who dueled it out live in the studio."
With Anything glass, Common Holly continues to expand the boundaries of confessional songwriting, inviting listeners into a sound world where fragility becomes strength, and stillness carries profound emotional weight.
Anything glass is out June 13th via Keeled Scales and Paper Bag Records. |
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