From the ether to the opening track: how REFLEKTA accidentally wrote the best song on their debut album
- Flex Admin
- Jun 12
- 2 min read
Way Back Home was supposed to be an EP. Then it became an album. And then, right at the end, came ‘My Love’ and everything clicked into place…
The story of how ‘My Love’ came to exist says a lot about how REFLEKTA operate. The Sydney Brit rock outfit had already written a full debut album, having pushed well past a planned EP because the sessions with engineer Oscar were going too well to stop. The record was done. And then, on what the songwriter describes as a typical Friday night of staying in and watching live performances from legends past, a vocal hook arrived fully formed while strumming over a rhythm that came from, in their own words, somewhere out of the musical ether.
That hook is now the chorus of ‘My Love’, the lead single and opening track of REFLEKTA’s debut album Way Back Home, due 19th June via Community Music/Unified Music Group. It is built on a single repeated line, the song’s title and its only chorus vocal, sung with enough conviction that nothing more is needed. The verses took longer to land, only settling once a guitar and bass interplay was found that clashes in exactly the right way and gives the quieter sections a tension the chorus then releases.
The production rewards close listening. Beneath the opening bars, heartbeat samples double as bass drum accents while emergency vehicle sounds fade into the riff, conceived as an emergency in reverse, the listener pulled back to life as the track kicks in. By the time the lead guitar solo arrives, mirroring the vocal melody note for note, it feels less like a flourish and more like an inevitability.
“It’s a celebration of the good things, which I am always grateful for but sometimes forget to stop and appreciate. It’s a good vibes party track about something we can all collectively appreciate and a way to celebrate that together.” - REFLEKTA
What was expected to be a deep album cut became the record’s opener and lead single. In the context of Way Back Home as a whole, that makes a kind of perfect sense: an album that goes on to explore love, frustration and the divisions of contemporary life opens with its most unguarded, grateful moment. REFLEKTA have accumulated over 31,000 streams and Apple Music editorial support with previous releases. This is the record that sets the bar for everything that follows.
REFLEKTA tour nationally in support from 25th June through 25th July, culminating in an album launch at The Lansdowne Hotel, Sydney on 4 July. Way Back Home is released 19 June via Community Music/Unified Music Group.
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