ALT-POP artist Ocean Tisdall has been off the scene for the past year.
The Wicklow native admits he returned home to Ireland to “reconnect” with himself and to deal with a breakup.
Now he has recovered from his heartbreak, he is back with new music.
Sugar in His Tea, released on June 19, was inspired by everything he has been through, although he never intended to write it.
"I wrote Sugar in His Tea kind of by accident, to be honest,” Tisdall said.
Ocean Tisdall is back with new music“I'd been with someone for two years when they asked if we could go on a break - and those two weeks of limbo felt like hell. I was a mess,” he explained.
“At one point early on, I left the house just to get a coffee - because that's all I could stomach - and on the walk, I started seeing him in strangers.
“I had to do double takes, realising it wasn't him. I felt like I was losing it.
“I sat down in a coffee shop, opened my Notes app, just to put down some thoughts and wrote: I've aged two years in two weeks.
“My diet is coffee. I'm seeing you in people on the street. Then I closed the app and didn't think much of it.”
It was not until Tisdall was back in Ireland that the song began to form.
“Eventually, I flew back home to Ireland - I needed support, needed the comfort of family,” he said.
“I was talking to my mam and said the words ‘If we do break up, the next person won't know that he doesn't take sugar in his tea’.
“They won't know he likes space when he's falling asleep.
“They don't know all the little things I do.
“So, I think sometimes that's where your head goes during the time like that to someone else eventually having the person that you love.
TIsdall's new track Sugar in his Tea is out now“Later, I went upstairs and added that to the notes I'd written in the café.
“I played an old instrumental I found, and everything I'd jotted down over those days just came together - it became the song.
“I think when someone breaks up with you, people expect you to feel anger, bitterness, maybe even hatred. But for me, it wasn't like that.
“I wasn't angry - I was heartbroken, trying to make sense of why I wasn't enough to make them stay.”
The artist, who has been making music from a young age, claims distance was a healer eventually.
“My mind kept circling back to this one thought that eventually they'll find someone new and If I couldn't make you happy, maybe someone else can.
“And maybe, if I gave the next person a bit of a head start - they could hold on to you in a way I couldn't.
“Which sounds crazy but at the time, I thought so little of myself and held them so highly.
“I put them on a pedestal and left myself at the bottom. I genuinely believed that - even if it came at the cost of my own peace - I just wanted them to be happy. And if that happiness meant being with someone else, then I told myself I'd learn to live with that.
“Looking back, I can see there was a quiet bitterness in that - maybe not obvious at the time, but it's there, woven into the song.
“I didn't even realise it then. But now, with distance, I can feel it.
“The heartbreak. The helplessness. And that subtle sting underneath it all."
For Tisdall, Sugar in His Tea marks the beginning of a “new chapter”.
The track puts his vocals centre-stage, guiding listeners through an emotional journey that is honest, vulnerable and raw.
See More: New Release, Ocean Tisdall, Sugar In His Tea, Wicklow
