Due for release 1st May 2026 via The state51 Conspiracy
Std Black LP / Ltd Dinked Edition No. 395 LP
Dinked Edition includes:
Transparent vinyl
Alternative outer sleeve with bespoke, die-cut opening & bonus artwork image
A6 dream diary - 100 pages with a wrap-around belly band
Bonus CD (exclusive bonus tracks, alternative mixes, demos)
Rounded corner outer sleeve
Limited numbered pressing of 500
White Flowers, the long-running collaboration between Joey Cobb and Katie Drew, exists within what they call “the realm” – a shared creative space, wherein time, rather than being a restrictive force, is fluid and boundless, and music exists as an endless conversation with their past and present selves. Adopting what the band describe as a “sketchbook” approach to writing, White Flowers is the product of a decade’s worth of recordings - snippets nestled away on hard drives, only to truly make sense years later.
On Dreams For Somebody Else, the band expand upon the dark-hued dream pop of their debut, this time channelling the catharsis of dance music via repetitive structures and “sad, euphoric sounds”: a mosaic of soaring choruses swirl around imposing arrays of synths, guitars, and percussion. Drawing inspiration from Annie Ernaux’s The Years, the album delves into themes of isolation, dissociation and identity. “The album has that same feeling of disassociating from your own life, because you’re just blending into everyone else”, the band explains. “There’s a sadness there, because it’s as if you’re looking back on things that happened to you, and they feel like they don’t belong to you anymore”. It’s the dull ache of nostalgia intertwined with a sense of wonder at what could lie ahead - the hopeful optimism and endless loss that defines the human experience. “It’s this idea of identity not being a fixed thing, but something that’s always changing. It’s a fluid thing, similar to time. Things aren’t really fixed, but rather in a constant state of change. It’s important to remember that we’re all going through that.”
Through White Flowers, longtime collaborators Joey Cobb and Katie Drew have conjured their own universe. “We call it the realm,” Drew explains. “It’s this weird space that we enter together.” Within that world, the confines of regular life are obsolete. Time, rather than being a restrictive force, is fluid and boundless, with their music existing as an endless conversation with themselves at different points in their lives.
Since they were 17, they’ve adopted what Cobb describes as a “sketchbook” approach to writing. “It’s all these little ideas that we record all the time. Some of them become fully formed, and others just stay as ideas,” he says. White Flowers is the product of a decade of these recordings – snippets nestled away on hard drives, only to truly make sense years later.
“It’s like having diaries and burying them away in your room,” Drew says. “You don't look in them, because you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, what have I written in there?’ And then you might be having a clear out one day, and you find them and realise some things you said were really good, or some are really terrible. It goes to show how much you're changing all the time.”
While the world around them has drastically transformed in the decade since, though, their writing and recording method has remained the same, as if they stumbled across a golden formula as teenagers. “We sometimes refer to it as a practice, just something that we do consistently,” Cobb adds. “There’s no real end goal to it, the actual practice itself is the reason we do it.”
There’s a sense that White Flowers has been propelled by a series of quiet miracles – moments of bright light splintering dark skies. Their debut album ‘Day By Day’ was released in 2021, when promotion was mired by pandemic restrictions. When they began to tour, the pressure of taking on countless extra roles meant they were quickly burnt out. “There was a point where we're like, why are we doing this? This is awful,” Drew recalls.
At a moment of despair, as if out of nowhere, they were asked to support Beach House on tour – a sign from “one of our favourite bands to just carry on”, Cobb says. Similar circumstances have pushed them forward into their creative fate – a chance meeting with their label, for instance, came after a gig was cancelled, only after they had travelled all the way to London from Preston.
In true White Flowers tradition, their new album ‘Dreams For Somebody Else’ is bound by its own set of shining coincidences. In 2017, they shared a “spiritual” moment seeing LCD Soundsystem at Primavera. The experience festered in their collective consciousness, and they sought to one day write something that conjured the feeling of the set. Eight years on, by a turn of fate, they were introduced to the band’s Al Doyle, who ended up co-producing the entire album, beginning with the closing track ‘Thinking Of You’, which was specifically inspired by the performance.
On ‘Dreams For Somebody Else’, White Flowers expand on the dream pop palette of their debut, this time channelling the catharsis of dance music while delving into themes of isolation, dissociation and identity. Though they say their work belongs to no specific time period, it does land in an increasingly dystopian era, which they theorise has fuelled a collective desire to dance. “You start realising how important music and art are to your sanity,” Drew says. “It is escapism from the world, and physically dancing, physically being at a gig and moving can be so cathartic.”
The record sees them delve into trance, harnessing sequences that spin round and round in a hypnotic state of melancholy. Throughout, they play with the traditional structures of dance music through a series of repetitive hooks – “things to dwell on”, as Cobb puts it.
It also deals with the juxtaposition of what Drew describes as “sad, euphoric sounds”. A mosaic of soaring choruses swirl around imposing arrays of synths, guitars, and percussion – fragments from their shared history that, when combined, create a circularity that almost operates as an endless DJ mix.
This sense of repetition treads between pure exhilaration and profound introspection. On ‘Visual’, for example, the constant loop begins to resemble a panic attack, while ‘Heart Breaks’ harnesses the arresting gloom of New Order, propelled by a chugging bassline and dry-pulsing beats that disintegrate into a spacey whirlwind before falling back in line. Elsewhere, the gleaming ‘Heaven’ is pure radiance, anchored by Drew’s soft, close vocals, as if murmured from a dream.
Thematically, the record drew inspiration from Annie Ernaux’s ‘The Years’ – an autobiography pieced together by mismatched fragments from her life. “That is kind of the way we do records. We walk back and we pick and choose,” Cobb explains. Ernaux’s tone in the book, one that conjures the effect that she’s merely an observer of her own life, also resonated. “The album has that same feeling of disassociating from your own life, because you're just blending into everyone else,” Cobb says. “There’s a sadness there, because it's as if you’re looking back on things that happened to you, and they feel like they don't belong to you anymore.”
It’s the dull ache of nostalgia intertwined with a sense of wonder at what could lie ahead – hopeful optimism and endless loss that defines the human experience. “It’s this idea of identity not being a fixed thing, but something that's always changing,” Drew says, pondering what the songs, a decade in the making, will mean once they finally escape their realm and enter the real world. “It’s a fluid thing, similar to time. Things aren’t really fixed, but rather in a constant state of change. It’s important to remember that we’re all going through that.”
Tracklist:
Side A
1. Spinning
2. Heaven
3. Backseat
4. Tear
5. Lamp
Side B
6. Heart Breaks
7. Visual
8. In The Sky
9. Dream For Somebody Else
10. Thinking of You
For Fans of: Beach House, untitled (halo), Cryogeyser, Cigarettes After Sex, PVA, Nightbus, TTSSFU
Co-produced by LCD Soundsystem & Hot Chip’s Al Doyle