London-based progressive alt-pop trio Exploring Birdsong have pulled back the curtain on their forthcoming debut, sharing a stripped-back live offering titled “Live From The Cottage.” The session reimagines the first three singles from their upcoming album “Every House We Built,” due June 26 via Long Branch Records, and finds the band swapping cinematic studio polish for something far more intimate, immediate, and emotionally raw.

Watch the “Live From The Cottage” session here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn_G-0e-KZ4

Recorded in a setting that feels as warm and lived-in as the album’s central metaphor, the session features reworked takes on “Romanticise,” “42,” and “You Like It Best When It Hurts.” It’s the kind of performance that rewards repeat listens — the arrangements breathe a little more, the vocals sit a little closer, and the lyrics land with renewed weight.

“Deconstructing the first three singles from ‘Every House We Built’ for this live session has been a fun challenge for us,” vocalist and pianist Lynsey Ward shares. “We’ve spent hours on the details whilst producing the studio versions with Connor Sweeney, so we hope that taking them all the way back to basics will truly connect listeners with the messaging behind these songs.”

She continues, “We are so proud of ‘Every House We Built,’ and we are excited to show ‘Romanticise,’ ’42,’ and ‘You Like It Best When It Hurts’ in a new light.”

That sense of intentionality runs through every corner of the album. On “Every House We Built,” Exploring Birdsong move away from the conceptual storytelling that defined their earlier work and toward something more personal. The record uses the metaphor of houses — their foundations, their cracks, their collapses — to examine the architecture of human connection in all its forms: friendships, family, and romance. Bonds, the band suggests, are carefully built over time but can fracture just as easily.

Across the twelve-track set, the band draw directly from lived experience, navigating anxiety, toxic dynamics, inherited grief, longing, and absence, while still finding room for warmth, hope, and self-realisation. It’s a record that swings between vulnerability, anger, and quiet reflection without ever tipping into despair. Even when the walls come down, “Every House We Built” insists there is still value in building, trusting, and starting again.

“Every House We Built” Track Listing:
1. Archipelago
2. 42
3. Romanticise
4. Footprints
5. Arrhythmia
6. Spy In The House Of Love
7. I_You
8. The Warning
9. You Like It Best When It Hurts
10. Cartography
11. Every House We Built
12. Meadowlands

To celebrate the release, Exploring Birdsong will embark on their biggest UK headline run to date this September. The tour kicks off in Glasgow on September 23, before heading south for shows in London and Bristol, and wrapping in Manchester on September 26.

Exploring Birdsong UK Headline Tour 2026:
9/23 — Glasgow, Scotland — Classic Grand
9/24 — London, England — Islington Assembly Hall
9/25 — Bristol, England — Strange Brew
9/26 — Manchester, England — Gorilla

Exploring Birdsong are Lynsey Ward (vocals + piano), Jonny Knight (bass + synthesizers), and Matt Harrison (drums + percussion). Pre-order “Every House We Built” now, watch the “Live From The Cottage” session above, and grab tour tickets before September sells out from under you.