Aquilo’s Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher surrender to love’s sweet, wide-open rush on “Under My Skin,” a luminous indie pop standout from their sparkling EP ‘Confetti’ and a warm, unguarded glimpse into the British duo’s freer new era.

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Stream: “Under My Skin” – Aquilo

Love doesn’t always arrive like an ache; sometimes it pours in like sunlight.

“Under My Skin” finds Aquilo surrendering to that brightness, letting romance glow without apology in a euphoric rush of sweet, wide-open feeling.

The first song from their latest EP Confetti is a radiant return from one of the UK’s most beloved indie bands – dreamy, dulcet, and beautifully alive as Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher lace bright acoustic chords, high falsettos, and rich harmonies into a love song that feels like stepping out of shadow and into the sun. “Is it obvious? / There’s nothing else above us, only sky and empty space,” they sing – and for once, the sky is enough.

Is it obvious?
There’s nothing else above us
Only sky and empty space
You’re in a different world
Everything before you never
made much sense to me

You say, “Hey, now”
When you get off the train
Arms out wide like an aeroplane
It’s a late night and cheap champagne
‘Cause anything can happen in a video game

You’re under my skin
Yeah, you’re under my skin

Released in mid-April, “Under My Skin” marked Aquilo’s first new music since their 2024 double-album project A Quiet Invitation to a Hard Conversation and You Should Get Some Sleep – a pair of soul-stirring records that deepened the British duo’s reputation for intimate, emotionally charged songs that ache from the inside out.

“Under My Skin” still carries that unmistakable Aquilo tenderness, but its heart beats brighter. Having long since shed their old “two sad lads from up north” identity, Higham and Fletcher sound lighter here, looser, and more open to joy – not less emotionally rich, but less afraid to let beauty be beautiful.

Confetti widens that brightness into a five-song portrait of feeling in motion: Love as rush, rupture, aftermath, memory, and release.

If Aquilo’s 2024 sister albums moved through pain, patience, and hard-won hope, Confetti lets the light hit first. The soul-stirring title track lets mess become celebration; “Almost Had You” channels regret into a sweet, panic-lit confession; “Sick of the Feelings” lingers in the exhaustion of emotional overflow with a lush wonderment; and an alternate version of “Under My Skin” draws the EP’s most openhearted moment closer to the chest. Together, these songs don’t abandon Aquilo’s ache so much as let it breathe in warmer air.

“Obviously we’ve been releasing music together for over ten years now, and there’s been a lot of living done in that time,” Aquilo tell Atwood Magazine. “So much has changed and the landscape of music is wildly different now too. What remains is that we still make music together and probably always will. We spend a lot of time working on other artists music, whether that’s writing or producing, we love it and we do all of that together. So we’ve been together pretty much 5 days a week for the past 13-14 years.”

That togetherness has always been Aquilo’s quiet superpower: Two voices moving as one, two instincts meeting in the middle, two longtime friends still finding new rooms inside a shared sound.

On “Under My Skin,” that chemistry turns weightless. The song’s title might suggest obsession, but the band frame it as something sweet – the thrill of another person taking up residence in your thoughts, not as a burden, but as a spark. “You’re under my skin / yeah, you’re under my skin,” they sing, repeating the phrase until it feels less like confession than celebration: The sound of love becoming atmosphere.

“Being under someone’s skin – this is a good thing!” the pair say with a laugh. “Being on someone’s mind in an exciting way. You can’t stop thinking about them you know?”

I’m an optimist
And I never thought that
I could ever feel like this
I don’t wanna say a word
‘Cause all that I can hear
are the sound of birds

You’re getting under my skin
Yeah, you’re under my skin

Their excitement flickers through every image: Arms out wide like an aeroplane, cheap champagne, rain, train stations, video games, birdsong, sky. Aquilo have always known how to make a small scene feel cinematic, and “Under My Skin” is full of those little flashes that turn infatuation into a world. The production shimmers with a soft, seductive warmth – acoustic guitars glowing at the edges, drums lifting the song into motion, falsettos rising like light catching glass. It’s immediate and immaculate, but never overworked, a song that understands the magic of not crushing a feeling by examining it too hard.

“We actually just banged it out in a day in the studio and had the song DONE,” Fletcher explains. “Except I had drummed in the studio and it felt a little shoddy and we could get the sound of the drums right. So we took it to our friend Rich Cooper who is a great producer and worked on lots of things we love, and he banged the drums way better than I could have ever done. We were both listening to a lot of early Coldplay at the time of making this music,” he chuckles, “so maybe there’s a little bit of that in there, too.”

You say, “Hey, now”
When you get off the train
Arms out wide like an aeroplane
It’s a late night and cheap champagne
‘Cause anything can happen in a video game

This ease feels central to Aquilo’s new chapter.

Confetti includes songs written six or seven years ago alongside songs written only a few months back, but the EP arrives with a renewed sense of freedom: The duo are finally independent, ready to release music more consistently, more fluidly, and with less pressure around what shape each era needs to take. After years of making full albums with the patience and care of craftsmen, “Under My Skin” opens a door to a lighter kind of motion – still thoughtful, still sonically graceful, but more willing to chase the feeling while it’s fresh.

“We’re not going away for years at a time anymore,” they say of what longtime fans should know about this era. “We’re going to try and be a little more consistent with releases and I guess a little more fluid?”

“The EP is called Confetti and 1 or 2 of the songs we’d written years ago but never got around to finishing or didn’t feel like they were right to release at the time. The other two we wrote a couple of months ago! It’s the start of releasing music more regularly. We are actually finally independent, so we can now release music whenever and however we want. There will be many more releases throughout the year too. We may hold off on doing – or making – an album for a while until we work out what we’d want that to be or sound like… but you never know! We’re just going to have some fun, go with the flow, and release music whenever we feel like it.”

What makes Confetti especially telling is that it arrives almost in tension with Aquilo’s own album-first instincts. In our 2024 conversation around A Quiet Invitation to a Hard Conversation, Fletcher asserted, “We won’t exist in a world where we’re making singles” – joking that they’d be the last people making albums, if it came to that. Confetti stays true to that sentiment, presented as a snapshot of a band learning how to loosen its grip – gathering songs from different years, different moods, and different versions of themselves into one small, sparkling release. For Aquilo, independence doesn’t mean lowering the stakes; it means letting the music move when it wants to move.

We’re just going to have some fun, go with the flow, and release music whenever we feel like it.

* * *

That spirit – fun, flow, feeling – is exactly what makes “Under My Skin” such a stirring, stunning return.

Aquilo have written plenty of songs for the dark, for the hard conversations, for the fragile hours when hope has to be coaxed back into the room. Here, they let hope dance in through the front door. “You say, ‘Hey, now’ when you get off the train, arms out wide like an aeroplane,” they sing, and suddenly love feels bright, playful, possible – a late-night burst of cheap champagne and open sky. “Under My Skin” is Aquilo at their most luminous: Warm, romantic, and unguarded, alive to the simple miracle of being swept up in someone else – reminding us that beauty can still be enough to knock the breath out of you.

To celebrate the release of Confetti, Atwood Magazine caught up with Aquilo’s Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher to discuss their new era, the sweet obsession at the heart of “Under My Skin,” making music more freely as an independent band, and why they’re trying to stop overthinking the very thing they love most.

Hey, now, when you’re caught in the rain
Arms out wide like an aeroplane
It’s a late night and cheap champagne
‘Cause anything can happen in a video game

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:: stream/purchase Confetti here ::

:: connect with Aquilo here ::

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Stream: ‘Confetti’ EP – Aquilo

A CONVERSATION WITH AQUILO

Aquilo: Good question. Obviously we’ve been releasing music together for over 10 years now and there’s been a lot of living done in that time. So much has changed, and the landscape of music is wildly different now, too. What remains is that we still make music together, and probably always will. We spend a lot of time working on other artists’ music, whether that’s writing or producing, we love it and we do all of that together. So we’ve been together pretty much five days a week for the past 13/14 years!

Aquilo: Yes! Personal favourites are…

• “Sober” (still feels a little timeless to us)
• “Silhouette” (seems to be the song people vibe with the most?)
• “Human” (did this with our friend SOHN and feels like it marked the start of something for us)
• “Out In La” (not sure what the hell happened here, felt kind of out of character but whose checking?!)

Aquilo: Big Thief / Adrienne Lenker – Cameron Winter – Konradsen (WE LOVE) – Charlie Norderwier – Caleb Hawley’s album ‘Soft as I can sing’ (which I’m pretty sure he sings the album as soft as he can sing, haha, but I could be wrong!)

Aquilo: We were actually kind of speaking about this with each other a few weeks ago. We’re super proud of what they are. A few of those songs capture a really specific time in our lives that take us back there.

Aquilo: This is a good thing! Haha. Being on someone’s mind in an exciting way. You can’t stop thinking about them, you know?

Aquilo: We actually just banged it out in a day in the studio and had the song DONE. Except Ben (I) had drummed in the studio and it felt a little shoddy, and we could get the sound of the drums right. So we took it to our friend Rich Cooper, who is a great producer and worked on lots of things we love, and he banged the drums way better than I could have ever done. We were both listening to a lot of early Coldplay at the time of making this music, haha. So maybe there’s a little bit of that in there, too.

Aquilo: That we’re not going away for years at a time anymore. We’re going to try and be a little more consistent with releases and I guess a little more fluid?

Aquilo: Not entirely sure we know what we want people to take away! BUT we’ve taken away a few bits and bobs. I think we’ve learnt to not take songwriting TOO serious. Over analysing lyrics to the point where it stops being fun is a funny old loop to get yourself into! We somehow managed to talk ourselves out of that, and really enjoy just making music like we did when we were kids.

Aquilo: The EP is called Confetti and 1 or 2 of the songs we’d written six or seven years ago, but never got around to finishing or didn’t feel like they were right to release at the time. The other two we wrote a couple of months ago!

It’s the start of releasing music more regularly. We are actually finally independent, so we can now release music whenever and however we want. There will be many more releases throughout the year too. We may hold off on doing – or making – an album for a while until we work out what we’d want that to be or sound like… but you never know! We’re just going to have some fun, go with the flow, and release music whenever we feel like it.

Aquilo: Ooooh, we recommend listening to Konradsen, Martin Luke Brown, and Caleb Hawley’s album, As Soft As I Can Sing. A duo we’ve worked with who we love is a female duo called Sarah Julia, definitely worth a listen!

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:: stream/purchase Confetti here ::

:: connect with Aquilo here ::

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Stream: “Under My Skin” – Aquilo

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 © Harvey Pearson

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