Oh Wonder has managed to uphold their incredibly lofty musical standard by releasing a new track on the first day of each month, and we can imagine that the constant pressure of this tactic has not been easy to handle. However, with "White Blood", their latest effort, they've looked for inspiration in a different corner that contains an issue much bigger than music: health, and, specifically, cancer. Along with the new song this month, the duo has shared some words about the idea behind the track, and rather than have us paraphrase it, we've their written statement below: "We wrote this song initially about cancer, and it developed into an exploration into the idea of needing immunity from disease, sadness, hopelessness or fear, not only in the physical form of white blood cells, but also with simple human love and support. The artwork for this song is particularly special for us, as rather serendipitously we had the pleasure of meeting Steven and Wendi, our fans - and now friends, from the US. Whilst studying at MIT, Steven inadvertently discovered a baseball-sized cancerous brain tumour, and successfully had it removed after a 10-hour awake brain surgery. We are humbled to have collaborated with Steven on the artwork, which is a very zoomed-in image of part of the removed tumour, photographed under a microscope by the man himself! (He's literally one of the greatest humans we have ever met)." You can read more about the story over on their website.
Oh Wonder