MI Local: Dream pop duo Bluhm premiere new song, discuss upcoming album

This week on MI Local, I welcomed Detroit-based dream-pop duo Bluhm into the studio to talk about their new album, Midnight Hill, dropping on Friday. Along with sharing their origin story, vocalist and guitarist Claire Bluhm and multi-instrumentalist and producer Cameron John Marion premiered a brand new song called “I Don’t Care, I Want You Now” on the show.

“We met at an open mic that I was running, in 2021,” said Bluhm. “He just sorta walked in, and he looked at me, and I think I was performing at the time. I introduced myself and I think we played a song together that night — it was just one of those things: there was a connection, musically. And we just focused on music at first, but then focused on a relationship after that — we got married!”

Soon after, in 2022, Marion would make instrumentals and “just blast them throughout the house and just hoped that she’d notice, ya know, just trying to impress Claire and hoping she’ll want to add vocals to one of them,” Marion shared. Bluhm did start developing melodies and lyrics to add to Marion’s compositions and the the project took off from there.

“[Marion]’s honestly really talented and prolific,” Bluhm said. “So it’s just about me picking and choosing what’s really speaking to me in that moment. I’ll sit down with him and a microphone and I just write the vocals and lyrics at that time, stream-of-consciousness the whole time.”

Marion said he drew inspiration from “outsider” indie-rock singer-songwriters, while Bluhm said she felt a deep connection to groups like Beach House, while admitting that listeners have also compared her vocal style to the late Cranberries vocalist Dolores O’Riordan.

Bluhm released their debut full-length album in October 2023 and started performing around the local scene. The duo will celebrate the release of Midnight Hill during an album release party at the Loving Touch in Ferndale on Friday.

Along with Bluhm’s in-studio visit, we also premiered new music from local artists like the soft rock quartet Vaega, pop singer/songwriter Chloe Moriondo, and the latest from WDET’s own Shigeto, with a track featuring Kesswa from his upcoming album Cherry Blossom Baby.

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

MI Local Playlist for Aug. 6, 2024

• “Punch!” – Shigeto ft Kesswa
• “Old Friend” – Aspect Radio
• “Lonely Planet” – Dillon Francis & Chloe Moriondo
• “Something” – Vaega
• “Monster” – Ditch Bunnies
• “Nothing But Love” – May Erlewine
• “Beautiful” – Jo Serrapere
• “Sugar Man” – Rodriguez
• “Better Days” – Drey Skonie & the kLOUDz
• “Drop All That Cynic Stuff” – Cam McGuffie
• “I Don’t Care, I Want You Now” – Bluhm
• “Midnight Hill” – Bluhm
• “Under The Glow Of Your Moon” – Bluhm