bubble wrap is out NOW! 🥳🫧
It’s finally here! 🤩 I first finished writing this song in January 2024, and I last put out new music in April 2024. So it’s been a LONG time coming in a lot of ways. I’m so excited to be releasing this song today and debuting as Times New Rita!
behind the song
I always say this song came from a conversation I had with my tarot cards during my first winter in NYC, but I rarely elaborate. I was doing a reading about my various dating/breakup woes, but every card came up pentacles. If you don’t know tarot, the suit of pentacles represents money, wealth, material things, and productivity – which in my case also includes creative output.
The cards/my subconscious basically refused to answer my question and said “I’m sorry, did you move to New York, endure an emotionally taxing adjustment process, and dramatically increase your cost of living so that you could be SAD about BOYS??? When you could do that for HALF the cost in Philadelphia?!” And I said “Oh yeah, no, I actually moved here to expand my horizons as an artist.” So in that moment I decided that my day-to-day schedule should reflect that goal, and instead of wasting time and energy on dating apps, I’d spend it on creativity and music business.
And shockingly, it worked. In just the following few months, I played my first three NYC shows, release two original songs, did a musical, wrote another new song, and began forming the band that is now Times New Rita. Turns out how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. 🌱
There’s a second source of inspiration for this song that I often forget about, since it was so long ago now – Funny Girl. To keep it brief, I didn’t love the show, but watching Julie Benko (The People’s Fannie™) sing the closing number awakened something in me.
I watched her realize that most of the joy and fulfillment she had felt from being in love for all those years was actually just the radiant warmth of her own love reflecting back at her. And if she cut out the middle man and delivered that love straight into her own soul, she’d be more powerful than she’d ever known she could be.
This character journey hit me hard, and was exactly the revelation I needed for my own healing. It became the bridge of the song, basically word for word. And a revelation like that demands a key change!
THE RECORD
We recorded Bubble Wrap in the first half of this year, mostly concurrently with another song off the upcoming EP. The pair was our first time recording together as a band, with real drums and live synchronicity and huddles around microphones. It was such a welcome challenge and I’m so happy to be in this new era!
I couldn’t have done it alone, but the three of us couldn’t either. Let’s roll credits:
Music and Lyrics by Rita Castagna
Produced and Mixed by Mikey Bar-Lavi
Mastered by Zeno Pittarelli
Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Percussion (I did some claps lol) – Rita Castagna
Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar – Anthony Speros
Bass, Piano, Vocals – Clay Matthews
Drums, Percussion – Jenna Krivosh**
Synths – Mikey Bar-Lavi
**It’s also Jenna’s debut record!!!
the cover
The best ideas always come at the last second, and we absolutely SCRAMBLED to shoot this cover art in time to send the song to distribution. We almost tried to do it alone, but we definitely could not have. Let’s roll some more credits:
Photo by Lisa Paradise
Bubble wrap donated by Bishon Hart
Location scouting by Link Tejavibulya
The loose concept for the cover is that I’ve just done the aforementioned pivotal tarot reading, and the three of us are writing the song immediately in the moment. It’s also that while I’m putting my heart in the metaphorical bubble wrap of healthy boundaries and realigned priorities, I’m also supported and protected by the metaphorical bubble wrap of the love and company of my friends. But also we just thought it would be silly and fun, and we were right.
I hope you like the song and the new direction for my/our music! It would mean so much to us if you’d share it with friends, request it from your radio station, and recommend it to whomever is on aux at your favorite coffee shop. And if you’re thinking about ditching Spotify (I just did!), consider streaming the song on a service like Qobuz or Tidal that has a high pay-per-stream rate. Whatever your streaming service, here’s a link to find the song and our artist page!
Thanks as always for reading and listening. I’ll see you at a show soon, and in your inbox again even sooner. 🥰🧡
*release date