There’s a pop trope for nearly every experience in the book – meet-cutes, breakups, marriages. But with her song “Friends”, London-based singer-songwriter and producer Amber Bain might have genuinely broken new ground. Taken from her second album as The Japanese House, In The End It Always Does, it’s a breezy, tropical pop track about sex in a polyamorous relationship. Over a skittering electronic beat and squealing synths, Bain sings openly about becoming the third in a throuple: “Did your friends find out?/ Do they like the fact you’re moving on?/ Do you like the fact it turns you on/ When they f***ed in front of you?”
Written about Bain’s experience of joining a six-year relationship back in 2019, “Friends” initially felt like dicey territory for the 27-year-old musician. “I was kind of like, I’m just gonna write a little sexy song about having two hot girlfriends,” she recalls. “I remember sending it to them at the beginning and feeling like, so nervous – pressing send and being like ‘Oh my God, what are they gonna think of it?’ I’m always like ‘My girlfriend’s parents are gonna hear that, killing myself!’”
