Boychik Announces Their Self-Titled Debut Album
Music

Boychik Announces Their Self-Titled Debut Album

Ben Levi Ross, the queer performer known for roles on screen (Tick, Tick...BOOM!) and on Broadway (Dear Evan Hansen), announces today their debut self-titled album under the musical moniker Boychik. Having previously released “Dust After Rest” and “Bombed Out Building,” their latest single, “Next to You,” gives yet another taste of what to expect from the full-length LP when it arrives on September 9.

"There’s a lot about the release of this record that scares me,” Ross says. “I’ve sat on this music for many years. For a long time, writing music was a very private solitary act. But I found collaborators that created an environment for me to open up this music safely. Being able to expand this sound into what it is alongside Jake Luppen, Nathan Stocker and Brad Oberhofer was one of the greatest joys of my life."

An orchestral highlight of Boychik’s 10 total tracks, “Next to You” sees Ross reflect on anxieties surrounding their childhood with a composition inspired by Roy Orbison’s string arrangements. "I was raised in a Jewish household that was always waiting for the other shoe to drop,” they say. “I’m practically always thinking about when the goodness will end. When the blessings will become curses.”

For the composer and vocalist, this song’s meaning is captured in one key lyric: “It’s a heaviness down to the bones,” they sing, wrapped in a web of cinematic piano melodies. “Knowing what we have is not guaranteed and I’m left alone. What it is to love and be loved on the truest level, and the soul crushing fear that it may be pulled out from under you.”

The Will Colacito-directed music video, also out today, is a strong extension of the romantic visual identity Boychik has put forth thus far. The camera follows them around a candle-lit dressing room inside an old cabaret bar, as they perform for an audience of none, following a long legacy of drunken women singing sad songs, like Diane Keaton as Annie Hall.

Watch Boychik's "Next to You" music video and stream the single off their self-titled album, out September 9, below.

Fashion

Romina Montserrat Brought Fantasy Back to New York

Story by Andrew Nguyen / Photography by Tyler Oyer