BC25 Connects With Us to Unveil the Emotional Journey Behind Their Powerful New Release "Blue Thread"
- STAFF
- Aug 25
- 11 min read
By: Staff
"Blue Thread" is a masterful blend of raw vulnerability and sonic brilliance, leaving a lasting impact
A wave of introspective emotion and bold musical innovation crashes onto the scene with "Blue Thread," the latest release from artists whose raw talent and sonic experimentation have made waves in the industry. We spoke with the creative force behind this captivating track to delve into the journey of turning unfinished fragments of a late friend's recordings into something deeply personal, and ultimately universal.
"Blue Thread" is more than just a song. It’s an emotional landscape that navigates memory, fragments of the past, and the tension between intimacy and public expression. With its delicate acoustic guitar opening and powerful vocals that evolve into something both haunting and empowering, the track immediately grabs hold and refuses to let go.
But what inspired the transformation of these memories into a musical narrative? And how did the artist approach inhabiting these songs, especially when their origins carry so much weight?
In our conversation, the artist opens up about the pivotal moment when music became more than a personal outlet, it became a means of sharing their soul with the world. We explore the evolution of their sound, the decision-making process behind the title "Blue Thread," and how the collaboration with their longtime creative partner is pushing their work into new, exciting directions.
Get ready to dive deep into the heart of their music and the mind of a creator who has only just begun to unravel their full potential.
Keep scrolling to get into it with BC25.
Here’s how it went:
Begin Interview:
Hello BC25, we’re thrilled to have you here for this interview! We've had an amazing time exploring your music and diving into your creative journey. Now, we’re even more intrigued to get a deeper look into both your brand and your personal and professional inspirations.
Q. “Blue Thread” opens with such amazing acoustic guitars. The tone and resonance of the guitars are the perfect backdrop for the incredible forthcoming vocals when they hit their magic. The softness yet commanding delivery is captivating. When did you first realize the power of your voice and creative abilities as a unit, and what event in your life transformed it from a personal, intimate expression to a tool for sharing your story with the world, ultimately laying the foundation for the impactful career we see today?
A.
Vela: I was happiest behind a drum kit for years, so stepping up to the mic wasn’t a plan. One night after a session the others went for a beer; I stayed, heard a q uiet guitar figure on the monitors and asked to try a line. I sang into the talkback mic—no headphones, just room and breath. That was the first time I felt how a close voice can hold a space without pushing. The “share it with the world” moment came later, in daylight: we played that rough take on tiny kitchen speakers and it still felt true. That’s when I stopped thinking “practice” and started thinking “release.”
Barbonus: I remember the pressure in the room changing—like opening a window. Her phrasing sat exactly where the guitar breathed; nothing fancy, just time and air. The shift from private to public happened the next morning over coffee: we hit play and realized the recording didn’t need us to explain it. If a song survives bad speakers and bright light, it’s ready to meet strangers.
Q. What message do you want to express with “Blue Thread”? How do you hope that resonates with fans?
A.
Vela: For me it’s about the small, steady tie between two moments — that blue line that still holds even when everything feels like air. It’s permission to be quiet, to leave a sentence unfinished, to let a minor-key melody lift without forcing a big chorus. I hope people play it on a walk or with coffee and feel their shoulders drop. If a song can lower your pulse and still stay with you, it’s doing its job.
Barbonus: Presence-in-absence. The thread doesn’t pull you backward; it simply keeps you from drifting off. We kept the arrangement open on purpose so listeners can hang their own memories on it. If one image — a curtain swaying, coffee cooling, a line hummed in minor keys — lands in your day and lingers, then the message connected. You don’t have to solve the song; just let it sit.
Q. Can you tell us your full musical genre journey? Is this particular musical genre styling something you’ve always embraced from the very beginning of your journey, or has it evolved over time from influences or other genres you experimented with earlier?
A.
Vela: I grew up in loud rehearsal rooms and small venues—alt-rock, indie, sometimes a touch of country or German new wave (NDW)—usually on drums or rhythm guitar. With BC25 I learned to trust smaller frames: a close-miked voice, a piano sketch or one string line, and a lot of air. And yes, I’m mid-twenties—let’s just say about a quarter-century in. The “25” in our name isn’t my age, but the coincidence makes Barbonus smile.
Barbonus: I’m mid-40s—the vintage that still remembers dial-up and mixtapes. ’90s garage bands, then a long detour into literature. In the last five years I came back through a box of fragments that wanted songs. I used to add; now I cut until the heart stays. Our lane runs from late-night pulse like "Don’t Look Down" to bare-room ballads like "Blue Thread". Same handwriting, different rooms.
Q. Can you tell us how you landed on the title of “Blue Thread” and was it your first choice or was it an evolution? What does this title mean to you?
A.
Vela: In the session it was just “Thread.” We kept saying, “don’t pull too hard, just follow the thread.” When the lyric settled into that soft, minor sway, blue felt obvious—melancholy without drama. So it became "Blue Thread". Not a concept, just the song naming itself.
Barbonus: I color-code takes when I’m editing. The guitar figure that survived every pass wore a blue tag. Later the word showed up in the lyric and suddenly the metaphor fit: something thin but strong, tying yesterday to now. It isn’t a rope you climb; it’s a line you listen along.
Q. The journey of "Blue Thread" began with rediscovered recordings from a late friend. What made you decide to navigate the process of transforming those unfinished fragments into something that was now your own?
A.
Barbonus: He gave me the cassette in 2003 and asked me to make something of it. I said yes, and then I spent years trying to “restore” what couldn’t really be restored — hiss, dropouts, the top end fading like a photograph in the sun. At some point I realized a promise isn’t about forensic audio; it’s about carrying the intent forward. So I kept the guitar figure that still breathed, let go of the rest, and wrote from there. Grief doesn’t come with a user manual, but songs sometimes do.
Vela: I came in without the history, which helped. I heard a living pulse inside the noise and treated it like an anchor, not a museum piece. We kept one clean line from the fragment and built the present around it — minimal layers, room tone, breath. My job was to keep it human and clear, and to say “enough” when the polishing started to erase the feeling.
Q. Vela, you’ve mentioned that you don’t just perform the songs but inhabit them. Can you describe what it’s like for you to step into a song and make it your own, especially when its origin is something so emotional?
A.
Vela: That “inhabit” line is actually Barbonus’s wording, not mine. At first I was careful—even uneasy. It felt close to stepping into someone else’s room, almost like borrowing a history that wasn’t mine; part of me worried it could feel like a kind of cultural appropriation of a personal story. So I started by listening. I listen to where the guitar decays, where the breath sits, how close the mic wants me. I read the lyric like a letter I haven’t sent yet and sing as the first listener, not the lead character. When a song carries someone else’s history, my job isn’t to reenact it; it’s to hold it steady in the present so it can speak now. I know I’m inside when the vowels soften, the consonants land, and I stop wanting to add anything.
Barbonus: From the control room I watch the room change temperature. When it does, we print the take and don’t move the furniture.
Barbonus: For me it felt natural, not ceremonial. I was close to him the way we’d always been — we laughed, stayed out too late, swapped terrible love-life advice, and made music… well, he made it, I listened. He’d jump from Tchaikovsky to ABBA to a burst of flamenco on a battered nylon-string without blinking. No gatekeeping, just joy. So when I opened those fragments years later, I knew his grain and timing — the little smile that arrived when a chord finally landed. With Vela I’m not trying to recreate him; I’m keeping the chair warm so the song can sit down. The moment her take reaches the air he would’ve loved, I stop touching the track.
Q. The idea of memory and fragments seems to come up often in your narrative. Do you feel that the songs in Unearthed represent moments you want to preserve or emotions you want to escape?
A.
Barbonus: Fragments are how memory breathes. If you “preserve,” you risk embalming; if you “escape,” you cut the thread. We try to do neither. We frame. The order of release is our way of guiding the gaze — letting one scene light the next. When I start circling an old bar of tape, Vela nudges the frame forward, and the fragment becomes a chapter instead of a loop.
Vela: It isn’t preserve versus escape. We kept all eighteen pieces — none were thrown out. The only decision was which six should speak first. The rest are coming, and one even grew a mirror song along the way: Through the Second Window, a response to Second Window. My aim isn’t to run from difficult feelings or to pin them under glass; it’s to give each one the right amount of air and the right moment in the sequence so it can settle and be heard.
Q. As your collaboration with Barbonus evolves, how do you see your roles shifting in the creative process? Do you foresee any new directions for your music as you continue to develop together?
A.
Vela: I started as “the voice in the room,” now I’m a co-writer and arranger. I bring rhythm decisions even when there are no drums—tempo, timing, where the breath sits. One night I told him, “I am not a loop.” That line turned into policy: if we start circling, we cut or move. I also call takes; when the first one is alive, we keep it. New directions? A few songs tracked in one room with no click, small ensemble colors like cello or brushed snare, and on the other side some lean late-night pulses. If a plug-in gets too pretty, I’m the one who says, “mute it.”
Barbonus: I still spark a lot of pieces—guitar or piano figure, a page of lines—but I used to orbit the same eight bars. Vela’s “I am not a loop” re-centered me. My role now is shaping words and textures, then listening for her green light. I’m writing more from piano, leaving more air, and I’m curious about counterpoint: her lead up front with my low-spoken lines woven underneath. Forward motion over perfect circles—that’s the shift.
Q. The EP Unearthed is filled with moments of quiet introspection and more anthemic energy. How do you decide when to bring out that contrast in the music, and what does it represent in terms of the emotional arc of the release?
A.
Vela: We don’t force a lift just to have a chorus; we wait until the song earns it. Some pieces ask for a whisper—close-miked vocal, a little piano or a light string color—others want the room to stand up. With eighteen fragments in the drawer, we chose six that traced that curve without crowding it.
Barbonus: Contrast isn’t a trick; it’s how memory and presence argue inside a song. You keep the hush until the lyric needs daylight. Sequencing does the heavy lifting—from hush to lift. We kept six for Part I; the rest will surface when the story needs them.
Q. We read BC25 doesn’t stand for anything specific, do you feel this lack of specificity and almost obfuscation, allows for the real true immersion of the listener as this leaves so much for their own interpretation of your band's overall essence?
A.
Barbonus: Names that explain everything close doors. BC25 is a small doorway—enough outline to step through, enough blur for your own memories to color the room. The less we pin it down, the more the songs can breathe; the listener completes the picture.
Vela: If you want a clue… BC could just mean Bass Combo. His late friend played bass; there was this little 25-watt amp from the ’90s humming in the corner. Or it could be Before Coffee, which is when I’m mostly quiet. Or simply a marker in time, between then and now. We like leaving just enough light for you to decide.
Q. Where does the magic of your music production begin? Do you kick things off in your home studio, or do you team up with an outside producer? And when it's time to wrap things up, do you handle the mixing and mastering yourself, or bring in someone to help perfect it?
A.
Vela: In a small room in Freiburg with the red light off. We set up like a rehearsal—close-miked voice, one instrument, headphones low. If it starts feeling like a “performance,” we stop. When it feels like the song is simply happening, we roll. Most beginnings are that simple: voice, guitar or piano, and the room.
Barbonus: The room is our silent co-producer. I track through a clean preamp, a touch of compression to keep the breath, sometimes a ribbon mic for that soft edge. We don’t bring in an outside producer — we’re it — but we stay open if a song insists. I do the first mixes in the box; when Vela leaves, I might try three extra plug-ins, and when she comes back, we mute two. Healthy ecosystem. We commit early — fewer takes and more decisions while tracking — then send the stereo print to a trusted mastering engineer, fresh ears that aren’t emotionally married to the fragments.
Q. When meeting someone for the first time, and they ask what kind of music you make, what’s the first thing you say?
A.
Vela: Quiet songs that carry. Intimate voice up close, simple instruments, and a pulse you feel more than you count. If you like space between the notes, you’ll find us there.
Barbonus: Minimal pop with a heartbeat—letters you can hum. We keep the air in the room; silence gets a bar or two in every arrangement.
Q. What do you want this song to say about you as musicians right now?
A.
Vela: That we trust restraint. A voice up close, a guitar that doesn’t rush, and the courage to stop when the take still breathes. If you’re looking for fireworks, the sky has plenty—Blue Thread is more like a candle you notice once your eyes adjust.
Barbonus: That we can keep a promise without shouting. We took a handful of fragments and turned them into a present tense. Small handwriting, clear line. If a song can hold absence and still feel warm, that’s where we want to stand.
Q. What is the most unexpected sound or technique you used in this song that listeners might not catch at first?
A.
Vela: I sang slightly off-axis into the mic to keep the air and soften the sibilants. No heavy doubles—just one ghost layer that slips in near the end, almost like a breath standing beside the main line.
Barbonus: There’s a very quiet bed of the original cassette’s hiss tucked way under the guitar—more felt than heard. We matched a touch of wow/flutter to its drift so the harmony sways a little, like light on water. The “noise” isn’t a mistake; it’s the handwriting of where the song came from.
Q. And finally, what’s next? Can you give us the inside scoop on your upcoming projects and what fans should be excited about? We'd love to be the first to share the news!
A.
Vela: We’ve actually been working across all eighteen pieces from the start — a bit like shooting the sequel while you’re still on set for the first film. Releasing Unearthed was us cutting the thread at six so the rest wouldn’t disappear into endless polishing. Unearthed – Part II gathers the next arc: same honesty, a wider swing; a couple of songs step forward, others stay in the quiet.
Barbonus: In parallel I’m finishing a small companion of interludes and text pieces — things that live between the songs — like Just Silence, Endless Loops of Yesterday, Observed. And a live-room video for Blue Thread. No stadiums; small rooms, clear sound, and a walk home after.
BC25, thank you so much, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us!
End Interview
We’re happy to have shared BC25’s exciting journey with you and uncovered such inspiring insights about their creative process.
