Culture Cabinet

When Sunflower Bean (composed of members Julia Cumming, Olive Faber, and Nick Kivlen) announced their return with a new album, Mortal Primetime, longtime fans were both surprised and relieved. After more than a decade of making music together, the New York-based indie rock trio had quietly slipped out of the spotlight. Now, they’re back, and quite possibly stronger than ever. 

“The long story short is that me and Olive actually met in preschool,” Kivlen says in an interview with Culture Cabinet. “In high school, we were in a band called Turnip King with a few other friends. Olive would play drums or saxophone, and I was on bass. We started writing our own stuff just the two of us, and that’s when we asked Julia to join. She was one of the only other teenagers we knew in the Brooklyn music scene back then.”

What started as an after school jam quickly turned into a full-fledged band. Sunflower Bean’s lineup has remained unchanged since those early days. They found quick success in their debut album, 2016’s Human Ceremony, that launched the band into a following that had them opening for bands like Pixies, Wolf Alice, and Sleigh Bells. 

But by 2022, after three albums and relentless touring, something shifted.

“We hit a creative impasse around our ten year mark,” Kivlen explains. “We never had a blowout or anything, it was more of a slow grind to a halt. We were still friends, but we needed space. We needed to figure out who we were outside the band.”

That space was necessary. As Kivlen puts it, growing up inside a band you start in high school can blur your sense of self. “You evolve so much,” he says. “But we always knew the connection we had was something worth coming back to.”

That return happened sooner than expected. In early 2024, after moving to Los Angeles, Kivlen got a call from their label, Lucky Number. The band began planning the new album almost immediately. “We didn’t think about algorithms or trends or any kind of career ambition with this record,” he says. “We just wanted to make something that was completely ours.”

That clarity of purpose is at the heart of Mortal Primetime. The title itself reflects both the fragility and the endurance of the band.

“We almost lost our life’s work,” Kivlen says candidly. “But, we found out that everything’s fragile and nothing lasts forever. That’s part of what makes life special and beautiful, that it’s fleeting and delicate. The funny thing is, when we got together to make the record, I felt like we were working better than ever, and we had all developed in the time that we took apart, and it felt like we were making work at a higher level. Doing after having such a tough couple years, we were like, ‘Wow, it feels like we’re actually in our prime when everything was about to end.’ And I think that mantra kind of speaks to a now or never sort of thing, or a persistence through struggle. The band almost ended, and then we were able to have this renaissance. So we felt the mortality of the project.” 

The result is an album that balances lush pop melodies with emotionally intricate lyrics. Belle and Sebastian and Kate Bush are clear sonic reference points, but Kivlen also cites artists like Elliott Smith and the Zombies for their ability to channel complex feelings through melody.

“I think me and Julia both really tend to subvert things when we write lyrics,” he says. “If it’s a song that is feeling too happy, we’ll throw in something really sad at the end. And then if it’s something that’s kind of sad or kind of angry, we’ll try to add some humor to it.” 

One example is the track “Waiting for the Rain,” one of the first songs written for the record. “It was kind of our road map for the style that we were gonna pursue, combining orchestral elements with heavy guitars. Then Julia added these really complex piano chords to songs like ‘Champagne Taste’ and ‘Nothing Romantic.’ You might not hear them if you’re not listening for them, but they really affect the production of the song.” 

Other standouts include “Take Out Your Insides,” the oldest song on the album, recorded in a completely separate session before the rest of the tracks came together, and “I Knew Love,” the last song recorded for the album. “Me and Julia wrote that right here in this basement,” Kivlen says. “We were scrambling to get every single thing we could out at the time.” 

In talking to Kivlen, I’m struck with the clear sense of collaboration throughout the band. These are people who have known each other for practically forever, and the mere fact that they were able to come back together after time away is all but a testament to their bond. It’s that authenticity that makes their work so strong. Well, that, and the fact that as Kivlen states, the sole purpose of Sunflower Bean is to make art that its members can be proud of. They’re not chasing anything but unadulterated veracity.

“It’s not a trendy record,” he says, smiling. “It wasn’t designed for algorithms. I just hope that if people spend time with it, they find something that resonates. Whether they listen casually or really dive into it, I’m grateful. That’s all I can ask for.”

Sunflower Bean may have stepped away for a moment, but with Mortal Primetime, they’ve made it clear: they’re not going anywhere. In fact, they just might be getting started all over again.

You can listen to Mortal Primetime below.