It’s been a couple of years since we last heard music from Wybie, the project of local songwriter Kyle Muir, and in those passing years, what began as a solo outlet for his brand of idiosyncratic art-folk has now morphed into a five-piece band with an equally adept collective eye for the offbeat and whimsically wistful. ’Seconds’, the group’s stunning new single marks their first release as a full band, while also doubling as a first venture into the colourful world of their upcoming album We are the Kids.

From the get-go, the track’s instantly immersive, blossoming open into a rich tapestry of lilting acoustic guitar and woozy clarinet as a swirl of ambient sounds percolate around us. Moments later, a sedated backbeat emerges with Kyle’s playful, intimate vocals, and from here ‘Seconds’ only becomes more evocative - the band striking a tone somewhere between serene and unnerving, while each lyric and purposeful hook paints an increasingly vivid picture. Simultaneously lush and understated, by the time ’Seconds’ has fully stretched out at the four minute mark it’s successfully cast a powerful spell over us, and then as if with a mind of its own, after a celebratory woop from the band the track dissipates back into the haze.

Not unlike the track’s ability to reveal more and more new details on repeat listens, Kyle has shared his thoughts on the track below, inviting us all to journey deeper and deeper into the world of ‘Seconds’.

"Whilst reading The Graveyard Book I was totally engrossed in it. I must have been writing ‘Seconds’ around the same time because at some point I decided I was going to capture the mood of that book in this song. Thanks to my friend Niran Dasika for the recommendation! If you haven't read it, it's about a child called Bod, whose parents are killed as a baby. The ghost residents of the graveyard nearby take him in and raise him. The graveyard is a safe haven for him growing up but as he gets older he has to confront the outside world, a scary place.

The opening of 'Seconds' has this same feeling of safety and nostalgia that I associate with being a kid.

“Low down closer to the ground“ - literally being closer the ground as a smaller human.

“Sweet in all the memories” - feeling 'sweet' or 'safe' reflecting on memories of childhood.


“Sliding arms down my sleeve” - this is from a vivid memory I have of putting my new school uniform on for the first time, but I also thought of a 'sleeve' being a kind of passageway through life.


“Now I've got the time to breathe” - after travelling through the sleeve of life we have now arrived at death and can finally let go of the worries of the living.


So my thought process for this song was something like: Death may be one of the most confronting things that a human can experience, but it may also be the biggest relief and release from life's pressures.

This version of 'Seconds' is the third iteration of the track. The first was a very lo-fi bedroom style demo and the second one was a recording in isolation where each person tracked their parts separately. With each version something new popped up in the song and the lyrics changed drastically each time. The first time we all played this song together at rehearsal, Flora (bass clarinet) and Isaac (bass) suddenly locked into this incredible bassline together, after the song finished they fleshed it out for no more that one minute and we had what is now the bassline in the outro (3:29 onwards). It was a truly magic moment. The interlude you hear after the song was done by sending a loop through all sorts wacky effects into a crappy old handheld Sony casssette player. I say it's crappy but it's a fun little gadget and it has a speed control knob where you can change the pitch."