Hunter Moreau believes everyone should strive to be more in touch with the vulnerable parts of themselves. And Hunter Moreau practices what she preaches.
Through her music, the soulful pop songstress frequently steps outside of her comfort zone to express the most vulnerable parts of herself, captivating listeners along the way.
Her newest single, "Hazy," is no exception. Produced by Doug Schadt (Maggie Rogers, Ashe, SHAED), "Hazy" officially dropped on March 12.
"As simple as it may sound, 'Hazy' is about the pure bliss of summer nights," shares Hunter. "Doug and I were reminiscing about stories with friends, both new and old, and the magic that seems to happen on warm nights where nothing seems to really matter. We wrote this song to capture the nostalgia of looking back on those carefree times, and longing for that same feeling again. The feeling that no other moment matters besides right now. The excitement of not caring how exactly you’re going to get home, or where you even are, but just knowing that you want whatever feeling this is to last forever."
Born and raised in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts (population 6,000) – a seaside town near Cape Cod - Hunter began taking voice lessons at eight years old. Though Mattapoisett is both small and distinctly quaint, she will tell you that her hometown has fueled her love for music in a myriad of ways.
Two weeks after the release of their first single "The Huntress Obeyed", the band Laddermen (CH/US) delivers the accompanying video clip.
"The Huntress Obeyed" is a spherical post-punk song about cocaine addiction in Austin, Texas and the dark side of the excessive party scene there.
The video presents this topic very powerful and with strong visuals. The focus is on two dancers who express the allure and tragedy of the relationship between a person and addiction.
Laddermen will release their debut album later this year. Their haunting songwriting and deep dramaturgy, for which they draw inspiration from English bands, should splash the indie scene with another palette of colour.
Gothenburg’s Sarah Klang, the self-declared “saddest girl in Sweden,” returns to form with the lush, melancholy of new single ‘Anywhere’, a song she describes as “about the constant search for happiness or at least peace or answers within yourself. How I long to feel better.” Warm Americana-tinged guitar reverberates with Klang’s incredible country-hued vocal diving straight to your heart.
‘Anywhere’ is the fourth single to be taken from the Swedish Grammy winning artist’s forthcoming album ‘Virgo’ (following 7th May, Pangur Records) and proceeds the “galloping country-rock” (The Line of Best Fit) of ‘Canyon’, the soulful smokiness of ‘Girls,’ and most recently ‘Fever Dream’ accompanied by the “sexy” Fredrika Eriksson directed video which premiered on i-D.
Sarah Klang has previously released two albums, her debut album ‘Love In The Milky Way’ (2018) which won ‘Best Album’ at the Swedish Grammys and topped the charts and ‘Creamy Blue’ (2019) which was also nominated at the Grammys in both the ‘Best Album’ and ‘Best Alternative Pop’ categories, as well as receiving a nomination for ‘European Album of the Year’ at the IMPALA Award.
Klang’s fun, exuberant live shows have seen her achieve sold-out headline tours in Scandinavia and mainland Europe, a sold-out show at The Lexington, London in 2019, and an arena tour in support of First Aid Kit.
‘Anywhere’ was recorded in Gothenburg, produced by Kevin Andersson, and mastered by Magnus Lindberg. It is released a digital single today, with the long-player ‘Virgo’ following 7th May via Pangur Records.
Swedish artist JÁNA has announced her second EP 'Works'. Due for release later this year, the EP follows standalone single "Green" featuring Nigerian-American duo VanJess, and her widely acclaimed (The Fader, Lyrical Lemonade, COLORS) debut EP 'Flowerworks' – both released in 2020. Accompanying the new EP announcement, today JÁNA is also releasing the EP's first single "Outsider".
Co-produced by Little Dragon drummer Erik Bodin, "Outsider" elevates JÁNA's hybrid of alternative pop and bedroom R&B to exciting new levels. Uniting lucid synths with chugging industrial percussion, the song portrays a scenario of feeling lost, or feeling like an "outsider" amidst the fallout of a relationship.
Speaking on the new single, JÁNA said: "The lyrics and melodies came super quickly to me on 'Outsider'. It’s my first “breakup song”. I’m questioning this person, the relationship and myself after a breakup. I’m basically asking this person lots of questions in a “how could you” type of way. There's a sense of frustration, resentment and some sort of sad hope (referring to the second verse) in this song; addressing the feeling that you don’t belong without that person or maybe you lost who you were before ever meeting them."
JÁNA, (aka Stockholm based Johanna Andrén) was introduced to the world via her collaborations with Swedish heavyweights Little Dragon on her debut solo EP 'Flowerworks'. A mediation on relationships in general – as well as a chronicle of one of her own past relationships – The Fader praised its lead single "Wild Roses" for its "lush guitars and jazzy, minimal beats", whilst Lyrical Lemonade described the release as "a memorable debut that’s sure to put JÁNA on the map on a global level".
Singer-songwriter Jack Conman’s album Seventh Sense Libido is streaming in full below.
Seventh Sense Libido marries the sexual politics of Cigarettes After Sex with the romanticism of Jeff Buckley & Pete Doherty - cited as Jack’s most cohesive body of work yet. It’s an intimate & reflective album about relationships which, through its honesty, affords the listener their own chance of self-reflection.
The album features singles Come Back In The Room which tells of the emotional push & pull experienced in relationships & Before You Love Me with its strikingly intimate vocal performance. They have received support from BBC Introducing, Amazing Radio & many more.
With well over a million streams on Spotify for previous single Oxytocin, Jack has enjoyed airplay on BBC Radio 1 & 6Music, performed at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend festival, featured in Clash's coveted Next Wave & gained a loyal following after showcasing on youtube channel COLORS. His music is now getting much attention, particularly in America, Germany & the UK with strong & encouraging streaming figures.
Sara Watkins of the Grammy-winning groups Nickel Creek and I’m With Her, as well as The Watkins Family Hour will release Under the Pepper Tree on March 26th via New West Records. The 15-song set was produced by Tyler Chester (Sara Bareilles, Margaret Glaspy) and is the follow up to her critically acclaimed 2016 solo album Young In All The Wrong Ways. Created with families in mind, the personal project encompasses songs Sara embraced as a child herself and brings storytelling, solace, and encouragement to the listener, no matter the age. In addition to two stunning original songs, the album includes Sara’s renditions of “Pure Imagination” from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, The Beatles’ “Good Night,” “Moon River” (originally sung by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s), and more.
Under the Pepper Tree also reunites Sara’s Nickel Creek bandmates Chris Thile and her brother Sean on “Blue Shadows on the Trail” (from the 1986 comedy The Three Amigos), Sara’s I’m With Her bandmates Sarah Jarosz & Aoife O’Donovan on “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” (originally performed by Roy Rogers & Sons of the Pioneers), Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes on Harry Nilsson’s “Blanket for a Sail,” David Garza on Roy Orbison’s “Beautiful Dreamer,” and Sara’s now three-year old daughter on her immensely sweet rendition of The Sound of Music’s “Edelweiss.”
Sara admits that she initially felt conflicted about making a children’s record until she realized that perhaps this album could impact a young listener in the same manner as the music from her own childhood affected her. The nostalgic and gentle Under the Pepper Tree offers a comforting record for those moments as daily rhythms fade into nightly rituals — and when a child’s imagination comes to life. “I want this album to be a place of calm, imagination, and relief,” Sara says. “Some days are perfect and things are a dream and make you feel like a superhero. And some days are just… such a challenge. I feel like this record has a place in both of those days, and I really hope that these recordings find a place in kids’ hearts, and become as special as they are to me.”
Sara sequenced the album’s 15 songs with the vinyl listening experience in mind. After forming the track listing of Side A and Side B, she then crafted transitions between the songs, making each half of the album seamlessly glide by. Sara says, “Although this album can certainly be enjoyed by listening all the way through, very early on in the planning I began thinking of it as something to be taken one side at a time. I imagine someone dropping the needle on side A one night, and side B the next.”
Under the Pepper Tree also features a stunning vinyl package so children can interact with the record in a deeper way. The idea stemmed from the vintage vinyl releases she’s collected for her daughter. “You find some that are really beautiful, and there are some Winnie the Pooh albums that we listen to on a daily basis, not just because of what they sound like, but because of what they look like,” she says. “My daughter will look at the book while I put on the record. The pages don’t tell everything that’s in the song, but that doesn’t matter because sometimes she’s more looking and sometimes she’s more listening. It’s all there, it’s all connected. I want kids to experience my record that way, with all of those senses.”
The Swedish psyche-rock wonder is defined as Phogg and the band has returned with a new album. An album that has been forged out of pandemic, 30-year crisis and broken hearts. 2020 has not been an easy year for none and Phogg is no exception:
“What does it mean to be a rock band these days? How does it matter? We are all closing in to the dirty thirties. We have ended relationships and people have ended it with us. We have lost treasured memories and have had our computers and hard drives stolen.
We have lost rehearsing spaces and studios, gigs and opportunities. The glory days of Rock have faded away in this pandemic apocalypse’s fart of the times. There is no fun making songs about an allegorical downfall when you are in the middle of it.”
In September 2019, we saw the release of Phoggs second studio album “Mofeto: Mashine Adamkosh”, an album “about robots seizing world domination”, that was well received by the music media community, both domestic and internationally. After the cries of joy in the wakes of “Mofeto”, Phogg took on the challenge to record two albums at the same time. The goal was to work on these albums parallely and release them simultaneously but as it would turn out, that was an extremely stupid decision and the band were inches from mentally burning themselves out.
This week the release of “Sharkness”, the fourth and the last single before the highly anticipated third album, “The Sharkness”, premiering the 16th of April.
“Sharkness, the title track of our new album, came to be while recording the album. ‘Sharkness’ means to hold a kind of self-destructive self-preservation drive. To navigate through difficulties and hardships. To push down instincts of worries and prance forward in life. This is to hold Sharkness."
The tune is featured by the incredible Indrielle, who was recording with us in our studio at the time. The song is a favourite of ours and we hope that you will love it at least as much as you love us.”
“There’s absolutely no reason why we should be doing this right now, other than the fact that this is who I am and this is what I want to do. So let’s just make a record.”
Such was the theme of the recording sessions for soulful roots musician DL Rossi’s upcoming album Lonesome Kind. Known for his brand of heart-wrenching, deeply personal songwriting that’s been compared to the likes of Isbell, Orbison, and Brooks, Rossi left Nashville for his home state of Michigan last year after his uncle was diagnosed with brain cancer, only to find himself commuting back the Music City to record the follow-up to his critically acclaimed album A Sweet Thing.
After a career spent embracing and feeding comparisons to his aforementioned contemporaries, the aim this time around was to break free from those associations and let his own light shine. Raised on Christian music and spending many years of his adult life as a worship leader, he came to love Springsteen, Petty, and Jackson Browne late in the game. And while you can still hear threads of their influence, Rossi’s latest offering shows a maturity and willingness to stand on his own.
Lonesome Kind is a vibey, ‘70s-inspired album laden with Motown guitar riffs and soulful lyrics with a reoccurring theme of independence while mourning the loss of ideals and energy of youth.
It was produced by Tyler Chester (Madison Cunningham), who also lent his skills to tracking bass, keys, and some guitars. Rossi was joined by his brother Nolan (Audrey Assad) and Juan Solorzano (Molly Parden) on guitars, with Ross McReynolds (Jess Nolan, Katie Pruitt) rounding the group out on drums.
Lily Konigsberg: singer, instrumentalist, lifelong songwriter. Since her early childhood, the Brooklyn-born-and-based artist has occupied her time with music. “Basically I was born and immediately started wanting to be a rock star,” Konigsberg told Pitchfork in July of last year (she was a 2020 Pitchfork Rising Artist). By the time she won a five-borough battle-of-the-bands contest as a teenager Konigsberg had already been performing solo sets in cafes around her native Park Slope, and in 2013 she would link with fellow Bard classmates Nina Ryser and Ani Ivry-Block to form the egalitarian art-punk outfit Palberta, a beloved DIY scene fixture who have recently come to wider attention on the back of their critically-acclaimed 2021 album Palberta5000.
Since the early days of Palberta Konigsberg has been posting solo material on her personal Bandcamp page. Between various other collaborations and musical projects she has released three official EPs under her own name beginning with 2017's Good Time Now, a milestone split release with Andrea Schiavelli, 2018's 4 Picture Tear, and 2020's It’s Just Like All the Clouds, her first EP on long-time Palberta home Wharf Cat Records, and a release that began t bring broader attention to Konigsberg's solo work. Today, Konigsberg is announcing a new compilation on Wharf Cat entitled The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now, a release that compiles her three EPs alongside unreleased tracks into a remastered (or in some cases mastered for the first time) collection. To announce the release Konigsberg is sharing "Owe Me," an older track she initiall demoed with It's Just Like All The Clouds producer Paco Cathcart, that features keyboards from Matt Norman (Horn Horse) and final production handled by Nate Amos (This is Lorelei, Water From Your Eyes).
This compilation is a musical omnibus—the first widely distributed Lily Konigsberg physical release as well as the first vinyl treatment for both Good Time Now and 4 Picture Tear. The collection loosely parallels the melancholic narrative behind the latter, where a mental break triggered Konigsberg’s depersonalized sense of her past self. Of the 4 Picture Tear EP, Konigsberg says, “I would look at this photo-booth picture I took with Matt [Norman] and cry because I thought I was looking at the person I used to be in that picture and that person was gone.” In retrospect, these three EPs feel like distinctive vignettes of Konigsberg’s progression as a songwriter, each version of her past selves tethered by an invisible thread to the present through musical alliances and fervent introspection.
“Owe Me,” a song Konigsberg never felt fit on any of her previous releases, now serves as an opening curtain call. “Thank you all for coming to my show,” Konigsberg says to an invisible audience’s applause. “If you didn’t know, now you certainly know.” It’s a transportive moment that combines Konigsberg’s patient steps into the underground pop limelight with her exceptional ability to connect with a diverse and talented cohort of creatives.
"I wrote 'Owe Me' in Petaluma on a trip with my friend Matt Norman," says Konigsberg. "I knew immediately that it was one of those bangers that was gonna rock people’s worlds, but after Matt added some essential keyboard licks, it disappeared into the abyss of my computer accompanying roughly 500 other songs still stuck there. When concept of The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now came together with my friend Trip Warner, I knew this should be released. With the help of Nate Amos who enhanced the beat, added the descriptive sounds, and basically just made it sound amazing, it was finally complete. For me, the lyrics to this song aren’t as important as how much collaboration and friendship can transform a banger into a BANGER. I love my friends."
Born Again is a song about the impact that one may leave on another person in ways that have never been felt before. It’s a song about the discovery of true love, the acceptance of these feelings, and the fear and excitement that comes with it. The distance between you and this other person means nothing because even though they are so far, they always feel so close; they’ve naturally become the missing puzzle piece.
These feelings grow deeper each day; like a never ending field of blooming flowers with scents that captivate your mind and take you to a whole new world of discovery. You can’t get enough of what makes them who they are; everything about this person warms your heart and draws you closer to their dreams that you wish you could be a part of.
Born Again underlines the theme of hope in the sense that you begin to fantasize about how life would be like with this person. The ‘impossible’ has suddenly become the ‘new reality’ and there’s no turning back. You feel ‘born again’ because of how they’ve helped you to see the world differently. Life is full of surprises, and this, by far, has been the most beautiful and life changing one for me. It’s true when I say that, “he makes me feel Born Again.”
As we received it from Michael - My name is Michael Masurkevitch (singer-songwriter under the name "Borrowed Thoughts.")
I am an actor and aging-teen-father, who is able to pursue my dreams because I live in my parents' basement (my 14 year old has a room upstairs.) Funny story, not only am I also a Michael, I also also used to be a beekeeper for a few years.
On March 11, I am releasing my first ever single, "Decompress." The song was conceived when I was meditating in an urban woodlot off the DVP in Toronto, and began to cry with the release of how much I had needed time to process my feelings, and began singing to myself through my tears.
The song felt like a gift from the universe, so I found a talented producer to help me turn it into a gift that can be shared.The result is a cathartic baroque-pop ode to taking time for mental health, with a roguish lilt and notes of my Romani heritage.
The song has been described by listeners as "A quarantine anthem" ; "A really sweet reminder to take time to love myself" ; and, "fun and whimsical, but then with this real sincerity and melancholy underneath."
We are delighted to welcome My Name Is Ian back onto our release schedule after an uncharacteristically long development period for their latest album, Fantastic Company, out via Bubblewrap Collective on 4th June 2021.
Fantastic Company will be preceded by lead single, For Love, on 12th March 2021 offering the first taster of the band’s new sound. The album will be available on limited edition heavyweight black vinyl and across all the usual digital streaming and retail platforms.
The band’s standard ‘prolific-and-terrific’ approach, culminating in no less than 18 releases since 2010, has been put to one side, with their latest being written and recorded over two years, with time spent in four different locales (Cardiff’s Rat Trap and King’s Road Studios, the pop-up Snowbird Studios in Riofreddo, Italy and Axe and Trap Studio in Wells). The resultant LP takes a substantive shift from the garage-pop of previous records and leaps double-footed into a charmingly wonky, indie-dance parallel universe where almost anything seems possible.
Placing centrally the multi-layered, pre-programmed beats of in-house production guru, Joseph Coleby, live instrumentation including electric guitar, four different keyboards and synths, smooth funk-soul bass and hand percussion are also liberally sprinkled throughout. Flanking Reginald Foxwell’s ever-incisive lead vocals are over 20 other singers including members of The Burning Hell, Quiet Marauder, HMS Morris and more. The aggregated effect of this production methodology, musicianship, and spirit of sonic adventurism is a warming, texturally deep and irresistibly catchy set of tracks straddling pop, hip-hop and experimental soundscapes.
Fantastic Company will be preceded by lead single, For Love, on 12th March 2021 offering the first taster of the band’s new sound. The album will be available on limited edition heavyweight black vinyl and across all the usual digital streaming and retail platforms.
Lafayette, Louisiana musician Renée Reed shares "Neboj" from her self-titled debut album out March 26, 2021 via Keeled Scales.
The song follows the hazy psych of the French single "Où est la fée" released in February, and the spell-binding earworm "Fast One" released in January.
"Neboj" is originally a Czech word that Renée came across while diving into Czech animation. For Renée, this is a song about letting go and not being afraid to fall in love, to just trust her heart. The song gently unspools with brilliantly finger-picked guitar and Renée's dreamlike vocals.
Renée grew up on the accordion-bending knee of her grandfather Harry Trahan, in the middle of countless jam sessions at the one-stop Cajun shop owned by her parents Lisa Trahan and Mitch Reed, and soaked in the storytelling of her great uncle, the folklorist Revon Reed and his infamous brothers from Mamou. She was surrounded by a litany of Cajun and Creole music legends, both backstage at the many festivals of Southwest Louisiana, and on the porch of her family home.
The new album from Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Dance Songs for Hard Times, is scheduled for independent release April 9, 2021 via Thirty Tigers. Ahead of that, the band released a video (“Ways and Means”) last month and a second single, “Too Cool to Dance,” this week.
Of the “Ways and Means” song and video, Rev. Peyton explains: “It’s a personal song, like all of my songs, but the song ‘Ways and Means’ is written for all those folks that have the moves, the style, the substance, the talent, but maybe not the seed money or the famous last name. All those people that had to work extra hard, because they didn’t get to start way ahead. Folks that have been playing catch up since they were born, and had to get really good just to make it to zero. The idea for the video was born from the lyrics, but also as a wink and a nod to those folks that know what it’s like inside of a Laundromat. There could be a lot of magic hidden inside the people that you interact with in places like a Laundromat, and my hope was to convey that.”
“‘Too Cool to Dance,’” he says, “might be interpreted as the album’s centerpiece for its message of not taking things for granted. The seize-the-moment anthem offers the chorus, ‘We may not get another chance. Oh, please don’t tell me you’re too cool to dance.’ I was thinking about all the times where I’ve been somewhere and felt too cool to dance. I didn’t want to be that way. Not being able to do anything last year, I had this feeling of, ‘Man, I’m not going to waste any moment like this in my life — ever.’”
The album as a whole conveys the hopes and fears of pandemic living. Rev. Peyton, the Big Damn Band’s vocalist and world-class fingerstyle guitarist, details bleak financial challenges in “Ways and Means” and “Dirty Hustlin’.” He pines for in-person reunions with loved ones on “No Tellin’ When,” and pleads for celestial relief on the album-closing “Come Down Angels.”
PACKS were an increasingly visible presence in Toronto in the first part of 2020. A string of intriguing lo-fi singles, appearing once every month or so on Bandcamp through 2019 had begun to persuade people to take notice in their hometown, where the band were sharing stages with people like Squirrel Flower and Odetta Hartman, and outside of it. Despite having rarely ventured outside of the city, and having never crossed the border into the US as a band, these early tracks caught the attention of the rising Brooklyn label Fire Talk Records, who have recently introduced celebrated acts like Dehd, Patio, Deeper and Mamalarky. Today, the band are formally announcing their debut LP take the cake, which will be released by Fire Talk in partnership with the Toronto indie Royal Mountain Records (Alvvays, Wild Pink, Mac Demarco) on May 21st.
To mark the announce the band are sharing the album's first single "Silvertongue," a track that captures PACKS at their fuzzed-out best.
"It’s easy to be lured into the comforts of past relationships," says PACKS leader Madeline Link. "What’s harder is dealing with years of exhaustion, mistrust, and always hoping. Ditch the whiplash of manipulation and decide what YOU want out of love! "
PACKS was initially a solo songwriting project of Madeline Link that she pursued between gigs as a set dresser for commercials, the band is now a four piece, composed of Shane Hooper (drums), Noah O’Neil (bass), and Dexter Nash (lead guitar). Together they turn Link’s melodically adventurous and introspective songs into the purest and brightest kind of indie rock. Anchored by Link’s voice, which brings such an easy charm to her songs that it’s easy to miss her keen ear for acrobatic vocal lines, the band’s debut is a collection of songs that marry the loose but incisive jangle of early Pavement with the barbed sweetness of Sebadoh and the wide-eyed wonder of the first Shins LP.
Written in two different settings, between the city limits of Toronto where Link was living in 2019, and the Ottawa suburbs where she was quarantined with her parents in the spring 2020, both remain complementary emblems of self-reflection and wry observation of the mundanity of daily life.
“The album is a meeting of old and new,” says Link. “Old songs from a year ago where I'm having really horrifyingly awful days at work, getting doored while biking in Toronto and flying into the middle of the street, or going on dates with guys who I'm either instantly in love with, or who end up creeping me out a bit. Those songs are more packed with that feeling of hurtling-through-time-and-space-at-breakneck-speed, manic energy. The newer songs are infused with a foggier, slower-paced disillusionment, and deal with the strangeness of a reality morphing before my eyes every day. I still try to be optimistic obviously, but these songs are really glorified coping mechanisms.”
Toronto-based Jane Inc., the solo project of Carlyn Bezic who is also known for her work as part of U.S. Girls, Ice Cream and Darlene Shrugg is today sharing the widescreen, cinematic-pop of "Obliterated" – listen here. The new single, taken from Bezic's forthcoming debut album, Number One – out via Telephone Explosion Records on March 19, 2021 – follows on from previous tracks which have found tips at Brooklyn Vegan, The Line of Best Fit and Earmilk.
Written and produced by Bezic, the new project is unlike anything she has been part of previously. Beginning as a one-woman show, Carlyn wrote and produced the early songs for Number One by layering multiple instruments on top of samples and drum breaks. She later recruited recording engineer, Steve Chahley to co-produce and record drum and drum machine with Toronto drummer, Evan J. Cartwright (Tasseomancy, U.S Girls, Eucalyptus), adding saxophone by Nick Dourado (BUDi Band, Aquakultre, Fiver) and Wurlitzer by Scott Harwood (Scott Hardware).
In a lot of ways, this album is a constant self-assessment. How do our surroundings impact our depression? Does outside imagery warp our ideas of beauty and self-worth? How do we manage our unhealthy connections to social media? What can we do to better our planet? This internal dialogue often leads Number One into vulnerable territory. “I think a lot of the songs on the album deal with how we form ourselves and how that gets fragmented and complicated by the societal structures we interact with”, says Bezic. “It felt right to make a collage of pictures of me (and ads from magazines) for the cover of the album. It’s like a weird fragmented self, building up an idea of who you are based on other people's ideas of you”.
This new cut, "Obliterated" marks the closing track on the forthcoming album and an adventure into this brightly colored, syrupy alt-pop which is fashioned around downtempo percussion and woozy synthesizers. As a single, "Obliterated" continues to explore some of the album's wider themes that look at our digital footprint and how we appear to others in an online world: "Obliterated" imagines the moment that the IRL self is overtaken by the online self," says Carlyn, "leaving a serene melancholy and calm resignation"
Themes around how self-image affects our decisions and everyday lives are central Number One. Within its lyrics and boisterous rhythms is an exploration of the difficulties of self-reflection when our sense of self is constantly shifting in each new context. Jane Inc. is an outlet to escape real-world bummers and forge fantasies, a sonic journey through a complex reality. It is an extension of Bezic, a solo persona used to explore the different facets of herself and her artistry.
Texas songwriter, Susan Gibson released the new single, “Compassionate Combat”, today to celebrate, thank and benefit nurses across the country and the world. Produced by Billy Crockett and recorded at his Blue Rock Studio late last year, the song speaks to the hard work, and dedication that nurses put into helping those in need. Never in our lifetime has this work been more at the forefront of our thoughts than it has been over the last year and Gibson’s song captures the feelings that so many of us share about them. So often we struggle to find a way to thank those people that do so much for us and “Compassionate Combat” serves as the perfect way to show them that we all care. It is officially available on all streaming platforms today. The video directed by Brent Tallent (linked below) is also now posted.
The song itself has had quite a journey. In the spring of 2020 as our country was realizing the impact the pandemic was having and going to continue to have, Susan was one of the songwriters approached by Carolyn Philips of Songs For The Soul, an organization that strives to support caregivers through the power of music. Carolyn asked Susan to write a thank you song to the nurses that were working so diligently to help steer the nation through these unprecedented times. Once “Compassionate Combat” was written and a demo distributed to Songs for the Soul’s network it began to take on a life of its own.
Shortly after, a friend asked Susan to record a video telegram of the song to send to nurses in the Houston area. With no plans to record a new album and the touring industry at a halt, Gibson spent the rest of the summer and early fall in Montana on her family cabin. A November online show from The Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio would prove to be a pivotal moment in this song’s life. With no other new songs to showcase but having never performed the song live, Gibson decided to throw “Compassionate Combat” into the set list.
