Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Avery Friedman transforms chaos into catharsis and vulnerability into bold self-expression on her breathtaking debut album ‘New Thing,’ a raw, radiant record of reckoning, awakening, and release.

for fans of Phoebe Bridgers, Samia, Mitski, Lizzy McAlpine

Stream: ‘New Thing’ – Avery Friedman

There’s something quietly seismic about Avery Friedman’s debut album.

It doesn’t scream, but it doesn’t whisper either. It’s a charged and churning journey in and of itself, and yet it’s still just a beginning, the start of the artist’s story – and an aptly-titled one, at that. A vessel of visceral, tender turmoil, New Thing is the kind of record that sneaks up on you, unfolding with aching honesty and a disarming emotional gravity. With unvarnished lyrics and raw, immersive arrangements and the toe the line between the the ‘indie folk’ and ‘indie rock’ genres, Friedman captures the uncontainable mess of being alive – the beautiful, brutal blur of becoming. It’s a soundtrack for coming undone and coming home to yourself at the same time.

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering New Thing, out April 18^th, 2025 via Audio Antihero. Born out of necessity, trauma, and an urgent need to create, New Thing marks the extraordinary beginning of an artist who once thought music was something meant for other people. Recorded with members of Florist, Sister., and Told Slant, this album is as collaborative as it is confessional — a living, breathing document of transformation. From quiet self-interrogations to unfiltered moments of catharsis, Friedman invites us into her world not with polished poise, but with trembling hands and a full, open heart.

“These are the first songs I’ve ever written, and I’m so grateful for the form they’ve taken,” Friedman tells Atwood Magazine. “Largely, they catalogue a time of great expansion and growth in my life – with the pursuit of music itself being a large part of that expansion. They cover themes of anxiety, anticipation, change, and experimentation, and I think those themes came across sonically, in the production, as well.”

Unlike many of her peers, songwriting is a relatively recent pursuit for Avery Friedman.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, she moved to Brooklyn in 2019 with no plans of becoming a musician. Music was something she loved from afar – she played guitar and at times wrote about it, but it was something other people did. But in the spring of 2023, a perfect storm of inspiration and upheaval cracked something open. A traumatic mugging, the lingering aftershock of fear, and a transcendent live music experience converged, and suddenly, songwriting became a lifeline: a way out of her head, and into her heart. “For a while after I was robbed, walking around didn’t feel the same,” she shares. “I needed a different way to process. That’s what my guitar became.”

What followed was less a career pivot than a personal unearthing: an act of gentle, persistent defiance against fear, doubt, and long-held ideas of what she could or couldn’t do. Friedman didn’t set out with a master plan for New Thing – only the desire to make something real, something that sounded like her. And she didn’t do it alone. Welcomed into a tight-knit creative community, she found not only collaborators, but coconspirators: Artists who saw her vision before she could fully name it herself, and who helped bring her fledgling songs to life with care, curiosity, and a shared sense of purpose.

“I met many of my collaborators through someone I was in a relationship with at the time who is also in the band Sister.,” Friedman explains. “She generously welcomed me into her musical community and encouraged me to collaborate with James Chrisman (Sister.), Felix Walworth (Told Slant, Florist), and Malia DelaCruz (CIAO MALZ). James and Felix, specifically, were deeply involved in my music-making process from the start. They were critical collaborators in every sense; from moral support to hours spent recording and in rehearsals, ushering these songs into existence.”

There was no grand blueprint for New Thing – no pressure to chase perfection or adhere to expectation.

Instead, Friedman focused on feeling her way forward, led by instinct and emotion rather than any fixed end goal. The process was exploratory, even sacred at times: A space where vulnerability could take shape in sound, and where the music itself became a mirror of her inner world.

“With these being my first collection of songs, and first experience recording music, I admittedly didn’t have a concrete vision for this LP,” she admits. “More than anything, I had the intention and desire to create something that felt like an authentic expression of myself, my music taste — and to create songs that I’d genuinely like to listen to.”

That deep level of trust and collaboration allowed Friedman to shed any expectations — both external and self-imposed — and simply follow where the songs led. Without formal training or a preconceived vision, she approached her debut with wide eyes and an open heart, allowing the music to form organically around her lived experiences, instincts, and emotional truths.

“In making this record, I gave myself permission to surrender to authenticity, and to center my rawest emotions in my art-making. I hope it captures my range of feeling, my proclivity for poetry, and the particular intensity with which I experience my emotionality – and how I am drawn to that intensity in the art I love (to make and consume) the most.”

Friedman formally debuted to the world last November with “Flowers Fell,” a gentle giant of a song that aches inside and out.

Meditative and melancholic, yet quietly hopeful, the track captures the disorientation of change and the slow, surprising grace of acceptance. “The flowers fell off when I was asleep / But it’s okay, ’cause now it’s all green,” she sings like a mantra, grounding the song’s emotional core in a fleeting natural metaphor. What begins as a reflection on seasonal shifts soon becomes a collage of memory: rooftops and sidewalks, photo booths and grocery lists, moments of intimacy now held at a distance. It’s the sound of someone processing loss in real time — not with bitterness, but with softness. As an introduction, “Flowers Fell” speaks volumes: it’s understated, unassuming, and quietly devastating, opening the door to the depth and nuance that defines New Thing.

Greene Avenue
footsteps sound the same
And you
we’re looking down at your shoes
And we
couldn’t stop kissing
On the roof
sidewalks, photo booths

The flowers fell off when I was asleep
But it’s okay, ‘cause now it’s all green
The flowers fell off when I was asleep
But it’s okay, ‘cause now it’s all green

Further singles followed – the electrifying fever dream “Photo Booth” this past February, and the searing, soul-stirring title track, “New Thing,” in late March. “To me, ‘Flowers Fell’ feels like it encapsulates a lot of the different sonic directions the record goes in, so it felt like an appropriate introduction to the body of work as a whole,” Friedman offers. “‘Photo Booth’ is the most pop-adjacent song on the album, and I thought its catchiness and sparkliness was appropriate for a single. ‘New Thing’ is one of my favorite songs I’ve written, and to me it represents a really pure form of my songwriting and personal expression. I wanted it to have a moment to itself in the spotlight.”

That sense of personal significance is exactly why Friedman chose “New Thing” to name the album as well — a phrase that not only nods to the song’s emotional weight, but also to the sheer magnitude of embarking on this creative journey in the first place.

“I felt like calling the record this was a bit cheeky and meta,” she smiles. It is also just descriptive of the momentous novelty of making the album.”

It’s a little bit of a new thing
It’s a little hard to predict
And I can’t quite describe it
But it’s like a magnet flipped
(Flipped)

It’s a little bit of a new thing
It’s a thing of the past
On the edge of my seat now
And there’s crack in my laugh
(In my laugh)

It’s a little bit of a new thing
I got shit to redirect
Little lace of black licorice
Pulling knots in my chest
(In my chest)

At its heart, New Thing is “a conduit for emotions too frenetic to hold on your own,” as Friedman so candidly puts it.

“Many of these tracks were born of anxiety – from my turning to a guitar to externalize (and organize) a sense of chaos that otherwise felt trapped inside me,” she confides. “We recorded the bulk of it with a live band as a means to maintain the raw energy at the center of the record. What results is a time capsule for a year of intense personal expansion in my life – and the layers of warmth, wonder, sensitivity, and sharpness that come with growing.”

Pressed to sum up New Thing in just three words, Friedman lands on a striking trifecta: lush, insistent, on-edge. It’s an apt description for a record that pulses with feeling – at once grounded in intimacy and buzzing with a restless emotional current.

That emotional current runs deep throughout the album, threading its way through both sound and story. As a budding lyricist, Friedman is most proud of the moments where nuance and intensity coexist – where language becomes both puzzle and release.

“I really like the lyrics on ‘Finger Painting,’” she smiles. “The verses read, intentionally, like a riddle, and the choruses are bold and direct. I am into that duality. I also feel proud of ‘Somewhere to Go,’ and how its lyrics swirl around the sensation of feeling trapped in a way that ultimately felt like a meditation and a release to write.”

New Thing is, at its core, a reckoning – with fear, with freedom, with the unfamiliar thrill of stepping into your own voice. It’s the sound of an artist embracing uncertainty, letting go of perfection, and daring to document the messy, magnificent act of becoming. Through aching vulnerability and unfiltered expression, Friedman has crafted a debut that doesn’t just introduce her artistry – it invites listeners into a space of reflection, connection, and catharsis.

“Honestly, I hope that listeners feel like it is a safe place to move through their less-cozy emotions in a contained way,” she shares. “I also hope they feel inspired to make art too, if they’ve ever felt a nudge to do something like that.”

Stream New Thing exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and step into the raw, radiant world of Avery Friedman — where every lyric is a lifeline, every melody a mirror. Vulnerable, visceral, and vividly alive, this debut doesn’t just mark the start of an artist’s journey; it invites us to reimagine on our own.

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 © Mamie Heldman

New Thing

an album by Avery Friedman