Derry “radical alt-pop” duo BEAUTY SLEEP (aka producer/songwriters Cheylene Murphy and Ryan McGroarty) are proud to reveal new AA single ‘BIG + BAD’ / ‘Unfamiliar’ which will be released on 8th July 2025 on all good digital service providers.

The two tracks are the latest to be taken from their highly-anticipated second album, The Whole Damn Cake, which is set for release on 17th October 2025 via Alcopop! Records.

Preorders are live now at: https://ilovealcopop.co.uk/collections/beauty-sleep

Fresh from a slot at SXSW London, the band will play a special album release show on 20th November at The Empire, Belfast, with further live dates TBA.

A celebratory, larger-than-life explosion of queer joy and the value of community, A side single ‘BIG + BAD’ takes its title from The Four Tops: “Are you man enough, big and bad enough? Are you gonna let ’em shoot you down?”.

Commenting on the track, McGroarty says: “The concept came from navigating the online swamp, incensed by the algorithm that sees you as little less than a statistic. Endless gendered online ads and podcasts pedalling harmful toxicity and irresponsible narratives. People are beautiful because of our nuances and individuality, influencers widely broadcasting toxic masculinity should not be normalised.”

“For queer people, community, feeling seen and support are everything to us. To be really ‘BIG + BAD’ Is to act in defiance, to act responsibly in opposition to those harmful ideas. It is a celebration of identity honouring the wonderful people and forces for good.”

The track comes with an official video shot in a vintage, artsy, boutique B&B called Harrison Chambers of Distinction where the band embodied BIG + BAD energy in various lavish settings. “Melanie the owner was very kind to let us run around her gorgeous location all day in various states of dress,” says McGroarty of the shoot. “We just wanted to show off feeling confident and expressing ourselves loudly, because that is the energy and emotion we want the song to evoke in listeners.”

By contrast, AA side ‘Unfamiliar’ is a previously unreleased new cut from the album about restlessness. “It’s a feeling that plagues me,” says Murphy of the track. “It’s the most honest I’ve ever been about that, to myself even, so it feels special. This song is the oldest on the album. It nearly made it onto the first album, but we recorded this overproduced version that lost the magic of the song, so we cut it from the tracklisting.”

“We’ve still always played it when we see a piano and we play it live often, and it’s been a fan favourite for years, so we gave it another go for this album, keeping the production minimal, with hard autotune and vocoders, and we love how it turned out. It feels like it was always meant to sound like this. A sad robot who doesn’t understand their emotions—a perfect encapsulation of how I feel when I’m so restless I can’t breathe.”

On the brand new DIY visuals for the AA side, the band said: “We went out to the streets around our house at sunrise—Ryan with the camera, me with all my emotions. This song is about being so restless you can’t think straight, so we just let out that feeling as the sun was coming up and captured it. I edited it a bit like a sketchbook of my brain, a little fuzzy, a little askew. For all the restless queens out there – this one’s for you!”

Further live dates and details of the album will be announced over the coming months.

Live Dates:

21/08/2025 – Hastings – Stade Hall (Queer Ass Folk Showcase)
20/11/2025 – Belfast – The Empire (album release show)

Images provided by Beauty Sleep