Bnny finds hope in heartbreak on “Good Stuff”

Chicago singer-songwriter and indie scene staple Jessica Viscius has announced the second Bnny album. Due out April 5 via Fire Talk, One Million Love Songs is a bright-eyed breakup record and a major departure from her extremely heavy debut LP, 2021’s Everything.

That album was written following the death of Viscius’s partner, and its opener “Ambulance” remains one of the most crushingly sober reflections on grief ever set to music. On the new record, she’s looking at love from a new angle following the dissolution of a subsequent relationship on less tragic terms. “This album is about love after loss, getting older, and just trying to have fun with a broken heart,” she explains in a press release.

To help her trace the twisting arc of a romantic journey from start to finish, Viscius brought back the Everything band — her sister Alexa (a prolific music photographer as well as a musician) and close friends Tim Makowski and Matt Pelkey — and added guitarist Adam Schubert (aka Ulna) as a fifth member. The self-produced record was recorded in Asheville, North Carolina’s Drop of Sun studios with help from Wednesday/Indigo de Souza collaborator Alex Farrar.

“Good Stuff,” One Million Love Songs’ newly released lead single, is an early-album cut that paradoxically zooms in on the dissolution of the project’s central relationship. Rather than dwelling on the painful parts, though, Viscius looks back on the good times. “I still remember the first time you said you loved me / Texted me at 2 a.m. from across the country” she sings in a gritty alto over fuzzy power chords and a slow-marching kick-snare. “I still remember the first time that it felt real / Oh, to love again, to feel.”

It’s an emotional opening, but the tension dissipates on the song’s dreamy hook as the drums and guitar pick up the pace, launching into a playful trot. “I’m hangin’ on to the sunshine / I’m hangin’ on to the next time,” Viscius sings, the specks of sadness that gathered around the edges of her voice during the verse falling away completely as she enters a higher register. “Yeah, I’m hangin’ on to the good stuff / Yeah, I’m hangin’ on to my big love.”

In the music video for “Good Stuff,” co-directed by the Viscius sisters, Jessica falls in love with a football, rolling around in a blanket of snow under an overcast Chicago sky. “It’s a breakup song,” she says, “but it’s hopeful, optimistic even. Or perhaps it’s just the denial, hoping things will be different next time, hoping that love can save you.”