Sunday (1994) soundtrack their own cinematic romance in laidback indie debut "Tired Boy"

Like all good romance films, the story of Sunday (1994) begins as two worlds collide. Suburban Slough dweller Lee Newell meets Californian wordsmith Paige Turner, and the pair bond over their love of cinema. For Turner and Newell, the big screen offers an escape from the mundanity of the daily grind that stretches from outer London all the way to the west coast of the US. Soon though, the duo decide that watching films simply isn’t enough; they want to exist inside them. So, after the recruitment of mysterious drummer ‘X’, the newly formed three-piece suddenly find themselves making the soundtracks they want to hear.

The result is "Tired Boy", a debut single that takes inspiration from Newell and Turner’s attraction to melodrama. On their relationship, Newell suggests: “I had stumbled around aimlessly for many years, but I wasn’t born until we’d met.” To this end, there’s a little of Boygenius in how plain-speaking lyricism in “Tired Boy” is matched with clean-cut rhythms. Observational and sardonic, the track’s wordplay is accusatory of a bumbling love interest’s flaws, but winks its way into falling for them anyway; “you sing in a band and your voice is like nails on a chalkboard / but you’re something to die for.” The song, Turner explains, is about “being in love and ultimately jealous with someone so careless and clumsy, yet somehow everything always falls into place for them.”

Certainly, there’s an element of cinema in the single’s soundscape, pairing rangy guitars with Turner’s airy vocals. As self-confessed popcorn-munchers, the band’s name unsurprisingly resembles a film title listed on IMDB. Exploiting the power of nostalgia, Sunday (1994) have relied on vintage movie moments to draw in new audiences. Indeed, "Tired Boy" might mark the band’s first release as a musical outfit, but the trio have already begun to garner a following on TikTok, where teaser clips of the single have been given the thumbs up by social scrollers. Thumb further down the group’s social media page, and fans will find reams of unreleased material, matched with dramatic - and often romantic - movie scenes of old.

As it turns out, this was the incentive that Newell and Turner needed to get started. They explain, “We uploaded a few songs to TikTok to finally see if we were criminally insane or if indeed these songs could mean something to someone. Instantly we had thousands of views and people begging us to release them. We picked our jaws up off the floor and got to work.”

Impeccably produced, it is a genuine surprise to discover that the track was recorded in the songwriters’ one-bed apartment. Without major label support, the group have embraced a DIY approach and the intimacy of their work no doubt bleeds into the vivid soundtrack that results.