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Schmoon – Pretty Darn Pretty

Portland, Maine indie folk singer-songwriter and filmmaker Matt Cascella is releasing his new album Pretty Darn Pretty under the moniker Schmoon, his childhood nickname. Appropriately, the new LP taps into innocently playful vibes while capturing the fuzzy nostalgia of growing up. This is an album of characters, some are bad and some slightly better, but pieces of Cascella shine through with each song. He delves into the celebratory joy that comes with time-worn memories, our present anxieties and the legacy of our unknown futures. Cascella’s work has been featured in Brooklyn Vegan, Hollywood Reporter, Glide, Americana UK, KLOF Mag and more.

Cascella cut his teeth in the New York City indie scene with his band Brooms, while also recording solo under the name Owlbiter before moving to Portland, Maine during the pandemic. He went back and forth to producer, engineer, and mixer Brendon Thomas’ studio in New Hampshire and together they experimented, tried different tempos, different keys until each song had felt like fate had bound them together.

Pretty Darn Pretty kicks off with the reflectively weary and wary folk tune “Sadly County Fair,” a tragic portrait of modern America written after Cascella’s strange visit to his local county fair. It’s a beautiful song that has a wry observational humor akin to Randy Newman. The acoustic guitar rhythmically chugs along with a percussion of brushes on a trash can. Otherworldly ambient electric guitar textures, reminiscent of John Cale or Big Thief’s Buck Meek, underscore this uncanny anthropological study of humanity. We’re given a peek into Cascella’s mental state while writing this song when he sings, “Cause when you’re sad / Sad places only make it worse.”

“There was a sadness to this experience, and I found it fascinating,” says Cascella. “Spending five dollars to take one shot at a basketball hoop. That’s America. I’m perplexed about our obsession with the American flag. I’m more and more confused about this country and my place in it.”

The bittersweet track “Wait For the Mystery” highlights our collective fragility following a global event like the pandemic days of the early 2020s, particularly as we all work to focus on what’s important to us. Here, our protagonist is waiting to feel excited by life again. He ponders mundane moments of aging, parenthood and domesticity, along with problems that feel too big for individuals to fix, like overpopulation and wildfires. Cascella wields his gentle voice against even bigger guitars as each refrain of the song’s title climaxes.

The country-leaning Americana rocker “Bowlegged Rider” has a Hank Williams meets Dean Martin vibe that hits that same honkytonk hipster sweet spot as Ween’s 12 Golden Country Greats. The song introduces us to the “Bowlegged Rider,” a cartoonish analogy to the toxic people in our lives who damage everyone around them. Through washed-out guitars and moseying drums, it’s a funny and fun jab at the cancerous people in our orbit. “So the chip became a chunk / On his shoulder that very eve / Must be how wounds become marquees,” he sings.

The indie-folk “Made It Up” comes across like Tom Petty’s Wildflowers album processed through bright, sludgy, chunky guitars and big bombastic drum hits contrasted with sparse choruses. It’s the song of a recluse leaving their agoraphobic stronghold to venture across the yard to the mailbox only to find that the wildlife has taken over. It’s a spiritual successor of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” in its depiction of loneliness even when others are around, and it’s unspoken longing for connection to other humans. “I want to be active socially and see friends,” says Cascella, “and I want to retreat at the same time. There’s a conflicting feeling in this song of someone who wants to participate in their neighborhood, but doesn’t.”

The old-timey cowboy folk tragedy “Not a Girl” is a tale of domestic violence. The song plays with narrative perspectives and points of view through this chorusless slow waltz — occasionally sung from a female perspective, and occasionally from the brute with lyrics like, “Hey baby this is what love is.” This terrible person’s wretched spirit decimates this poor woman who’s working overtime on justifying the violence.

The whimsical and dreamy “Birthday Pancakes” is about ruining the nice things you do for your partner by keeping a mental tally, only to use them as argument fodder during heated moments. It takes all of the protagonists’ bad traits and puts them front and center, accompanied by a playful glockenspiel, banjo and accordion. “You love those pancakes on your birthday / I’m such a wonderful guy,” he sings. “Birthday Pancakes” almost works as a quasi-interlude, adding an exciting element to the tapestry of Pretty Darn Pretty.

The folk-punk tinged “Danny Friend” weaves propulsive percussion through exciting finger-picked banjo accents and a distorted electric bass guitar lead, both played by Thomas. The song is a fantasy about living off the grid with your best friend. “We could live on canned beans / Fish in the creek, one pair of jeans /That’s all I need,” he sings. It’s a song of longing for the freedom of not needing to have a job, told through a selfish character who’s trying to manipulate Danny to take him away. The song explores untraditional primal sounds through established folk-rock amalgamations while following a path blazed by genre outsiders like Tom Waits and M. Ward. The song ends with a swirling chaos, into a field-recorded jumpcut of Cascella singing and gurgling in the shower that his wife recorded.

The Brazilian groove and Herb Alpert horns of “Table for One” has a 1950s’ crooner-pop vibe. It’s the song of a man going out to eat alone on his birthday who isn’t comfortable in his own skin. It bothers him, but he’s pretending like it doesn’t. The ethereal piano ballad “To a Butthead” is a message from Cascella to himself about his own fear of death. “Live every day like it’s your last / Golly gosh that sounds exhausting,” he sings. Both of these songs would feel right at home in a Pixar film with their observational oddities.

The album closes with the title track “Pretty Darn Pretty,” a song that revels in the nostalgia of the ‘good ole days.’ It’s thesis is that it’s nice to get that dopamine surge from reliving the hits of your past, but it becomes sad to wallow in your own history without looking forward. The refrain of “go back to the good ole days” repeats like a hypnotic suggestion, luring you into embracing a past that may have never existed at all.

Cascella started playing drums in a band in high school in Connecticut, then moved to New York City for college. There he explored language and words and began singing and writing lyrics, while continuing to play drums in different projects. He put out his first solo record, Black Crackers (2010), under the name Owlbiter. He recorded fast with his buddy James Downes. “It had a hurried sound,” says Cascella, “recorded like I was going to die in a couple days. That’s the difference between Owlbiter and Schmoon.”

He linked up with keys player Brett Crudgington and created the whimsical piano-pop project Brooms, writing and recording songs that were fun, off-kilter and intimate. Cascella was living in a factory converted into artists space near Prospect Park where he could play drums at all hours, and Crudgington lived just on the other side of the park. They practiced four days a week.

Brooms’ debut album In the Backyard (2012) tapped into the sadness and general crumby feelings of young men, delving into unrequited love while exploring cool textures that included brass and string arrangements and reed instruments. Fuzzy Waters (2013) comes together like a cohesive film with a beginning, middle and end — filled with characters that you can identify with. Their album Brooms Blooms (2015) is a bigger album, crunchier, more rock with harder hitting drums, but the band was going through a bit of dysfunction and wouldn’t make another proper studio album. Cascella moved into “a normal apartment with walls and heat.”

Cascella found himself inspired by “demo-sounding albums.” There was something about this particular moment that he needed to capture. He recorded his solo album Stud Farm (2018), again under the name Owlbiter and engineered and produced by Downes. Their keep-it-simple approach brought together an album full of gently plucked acoustic guitars and ukuleles, drowsy brass and the occasional keyboard atmospherics, with lyrics that leaned into humor before hitting you with pathos.

Even before the 2020 pandemic hit, Cascella was feeling burnout from the city. He, along with his old Brooms bandmates, compiled recordings that hadn’t gone on proper releases. This became the album Call Me Anything You Want (2020). It was the height of the pandemic and music venues didn’t know if they’d be able to weather this storm. They donated all the money from that record to Williamsburg venue Pete’s Candy Store, a place that they’ve played at regularly throughout his time in New York.

“It was a good way to close that chapter in my life,” says Cascella. “I was spoiled in the 2010s by good friends. Things were manageable budget-wise, working and playing shows in Brooklyn. I kinda threw a dart at a map, and now we’re in Maine. It was a good transitional city, smaller than New York obviously, and we have more room.”

He tracked some of the songs from Pretty Darn Pretty just before the pandemic with the intention of making a country album. When the move happened, he put them away to focus on filmmaking, and made his debut feature film Hangdog (which became available at streaming on Oct. 25). It was co-created with his wife and soundtracked by Walter Martin of The Walkmen. Loosely inspired by his fear of accidentally killing their dog, the film follows anxiety-ridden Walt (played by Desmin Borges) who embarks on a desperate quest through Portland, Maine to retrieve his stolen dog before his girlfriend returns from a business trip, or risk losing them both. Cascella has previously worked as editor & director for the likes of HBO, National Geographic, The Museum of Modern Art, American Museum of Natural History, Buzzfeed, Vice, CNN, The Huffington Post, and Maysles Films.

Then, he felt compelled to revisit those songs, and new songs kept coming to him until he found a front-to-back cohesion for Pretty Darn Pretty, exploring different parallels with Thomas. “I’m less bothered on this new record,” says Cascella. “There’s less agitation and urgency. I’m more observational. Owlbiter felt worn out, like it was the 23 year old version of me. So I shed that skin to embrace Schmoon. Instead of lamenting the sad parts of life, my favorite stuff is looking at the domestic details of life, and finding interesting ways to talk about them. Literally going to the county fair here and transcribing the things I witnessed.”

This is a record of dark characters searching for the bright spots in a gloomy setting, yet the album musically never sets into that gloom. These characters resist the darkness, not allowing themselves to sink into a deep depression or throw in the towel altogether. Pretty Darn Pretty has a theme of capturing a spectrum of emotions that teeter on giving up or sulking in indifference, but it always finds the childlike wonder and positive sheen that the world has to offer.

“Brendon and I had fun making this record,” says Cascella. “I’m trying to enjoy the process of making art and having fun. It can be frustrating, jamming yourself up and being in your head, when it comes to recording. Now I’m open to not controlling everything. These days I just want to make things with the people I care about.”

TRACK LIST:
01  Sadly County Fair
02  Wait for the Mystery
03  Bowlegged Rider
04  Made It Up
05  Not a Girl
06  Birthday Pancakes
07 Danny Friend
08  Table for One
09  To a Butthead

10 Pretty Darn PrettyALBUM CREDITS:
Matt Cascella – songs, voice, drums, acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, breadsticks
Brendon Thomas – electric and acoustic guitar, banjo, keys, bass, background vocals, harmonica, wine glasses
Christy Thomas – background vocals on “Sadly County Fair” and “Not a Girl”
Sam Kyzivat – effects, additional keys and voices on “To a Butthead”
James Downes – acoustic guitar on “Made it Up”
Brett Crudgington – additional keys on “Pretty Darn Pretty”
Jeremy Fink – horns on “Table for One”
Jessica Richards – birthday singing on “Table for One”
Jen Cordery – birthday singing on “Table for One”
Bean Friend – accordion on “Pancake Birthday”
Lizzie – fart
Engineered and Produced by Brendon Thomas
Mastered by Dave Downham

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Sloppy Scales – This Machine Mocks Fascists: The Sloppy Scales Songbook

From the ancient Greeks to medieval court jesters to modern late night talk show hosts, taking comedic jabs at those in power can be as persuasive as a sword. Retired legendary rodeo clown and now musical satirist Sloppy Scales has assembled a world-class band of musicians to create his debut album This Machine Mocks Fascists: The Sloppy Scales Songbook, a hilarious Latin countrypolitan blues-rock bulldogging of America’s far-right politics. It’s refreshingly incendiary in its raw condemnation of injustice.

Sloppy Scales has traveled the world, but now calls Atlanta his home. He’s a great songwriter, but terrible musician (hence his name). So he assembled a crack team of diverse musicians to record the album, the majority of whom make up the band Guilherme Shakespeare, the house band of Atlanta venue Buteco – known for its Latin music and Brazilian cuisine. Players include Rafael Pereira (Janelle Monae, PJ Morton), Guilherme Shakespeare (Rock*A*Teens, Os Ossos), Daniel Wytanis (Ghost-Note, KEM), Cleidinilson “Chocolate” Costa, and singers Mr. Maph, Skye Doughty, Natalye Woodson, and Bret Busch whose last album (with most of this crew) found praise at PopMatters, American Songwriter, No Depression and more.

This Machine Mocks Fascists is modern sad-clown music. It mirrors the humanist perspective of Woody Guthrie, while charting Sloppy Scales’ whimsically tragic biographical odyssey to this collection of songs. And, in equal parts, it’s a scathing and inflammatory takedown of radically conservative, bigoted and ultra-nationalist politics. He takes particular aim at Donald J. Trump, the MAGA movement, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and the racist, xenophobic and fear-mongering elements that have become the norm in our modern politics.

The album kicks off with the dreamy folk “I Shagged a MAGA,” with its landscape of lap steel, cello, light drums and Alison Krauss-esque vocals. It’s a comedic Americana tale of a drunken one-night-stand with a border guard MAGA member in Texas, a state with oppressively restrictive reproductive rights laws. The song ends as our protagonist-turned-medical tourist heads off to Canada, where women’s bodily integrity is protected. Its ridiculously over-the-top description of the tryst is entangled with the humorously oddball juxtaposition of confronting the real-life horror that is the aftermath of the Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs. Wade. “But the Supreme Court / Will not support / The greater good or Planned Parenthood / My right to choose has been refused,” she sings.

In the swanky Chicago blues song “Trump,” Sloppy Scales throws verbal haymakers at the former president. It’s a fun yet aggressive lampooning knock-out of the former president through Frank Sinatra horns and Dean Martin attitude – singing, “Just a mean old man with tiny tiny hands,” before criticizing his history of sexual assault, stealing state secrets, trying to overthrow the 2020 election, and his general attacks against non-white immigrants.

Sloppy Scales set out to make a record that’s a celebration of multiculturalism, civil rights, and fundamental fairness. The lewd and playful “Republicans” holds a mirror up to the political party that capitalizes on racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic rhetoric. Sloppy Scales delivers this disturbing message through music that dives into Latin and Caribbean roots percussion and horns, while being vocally explicit about this side’s hatred of multiculturalism, while creating division and social strife. It’s sung like a school alma mater song, or like members of a secret lodge, from the perspective of white nationalists setting up a Trump rally. It demonstrates the absurdity of some people’s morally reprehensible ideologies, particularly with the far-right’s reactionary and white nationalist movements who are lock-step with the MAGA republican party. It’s a song that cuts to the heart of what they actually stand for: a corrupt and incompetent government, white nationalism, anti-intellectualism and entitlement as they sing, “We collect guns for protection / And if we lose the next election / We’ll stage a bloody insurrection / It’s an expression of patriotism.” On paper none of this sounds funny at all, but Sloppy Scales does what clowns do best and treats this content as the outrageous buffoonery it is.

The calypso-inspired, gospel-soul track “Sweet Baby Jesus” gives the vibe of a re-discovered 45 rpm rock n’ roll single from the 1950s with its heavy Latin percussion, festive horns and vocal harmonies. It’s a song that’s making fun of the human condition, while reflecting on the choices we make until we’re on our knees praying for forgiveness. This is Sloppy Scales appealing for mercy after a lifetime of breaking commandments. “Sweet baby Jesus / I’mma need that forgiveness when you’re grown,” he sings, cementing his place as a classic satirist. Here he is, pleading to a baby who couldn’t possibly comprehend what he’s asking. As we’re all sinners prone to temptation, is this going to be the next Christmas time hit?

Sloppy Scales comes from entertainment royalty as the grandson of Hee-Haw and Grand Ole Opry cornball legend Minnie Pearl and one of Mexico’s greatest comedians, and 1940s filmmaking pioneer, Cantinflas. The influence of his grandmother had a significant impact on Sloppy Scales’ musical and comical tendencies. His grandparents’ alternatingly irreverent and homespun sense of humor left Sloppy Scales with a sharp-tongued but whimsical style steeped in cowboy chords, Afro-Latin syncopation and the rebellious spirit of his adolescent garage bands.

The best way to get to know Sloppy Scales is through his song “Cantinflas.” Sloppy Scales’ grandfather brought him along to a circus casting call when he was just five years old, and he got bit by the showbiz bug. He went home and practiced singing, dancing, acrobatics and music. He eventually made a name for himself as a rodeo clown working Wild West shows. Before his death, Cantinflas told Sloppy Scales that he should use his talents to, “Invent melodies and words to satirize the politically corrupt and the morally bankrupt. Sure beats a bull horn in the gut.”

The egalitarian story “Brown Clowns Need Not Apply” combines Sloppy Scales hillbilly heritage of Americana acoustic guitar, Northeastern Brazilian baião beats, and his Mexican roots of mariachi horns. Here he tells the humorous tale of his rambling tour of rejection from rodeo clown jobs, despite his proven elite clowning prowess. He encountered the same discrimination faced by circus performers, vaudevillians and other carnies of color for millenia. He found himself relegated to janitorial positions until the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission intervened and shut down that job site, later converting it to a Mexican cantina. Sloppy Scales rose to prominence as a world-renowned rodeo clown and circus-arts performer. His employment challenges were among the first incidents that led to his involvement in the fight for civil rights.

The classic country song “That’s My Ex-Wife’s New Sex Life” is a melancholy old-time waltz that comes across like a tragic hymn. The sad clowning of Sloppy Scales has never felt more sad-clown than this. It tells the tale of Sloppy Scales’ now ex-wife’s pilgrimage from religious near-asexual, to their divorce, to her becoming a sexually liberated woman who doesn’t shy away from live-streamed group sex. The song itself recognizes that it’s “rude, crude and socially unacceptable,” followed by Sloppy Scales’ meek apology as he dolefully follows her unfolding story of amorous triumphs from afar.

With a wink to Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year,” the ragtime folk-punk ditty “When I Was 13” rolls over you like a whimsical hillbilly samba punctuated with mariachi horns. Here he contrasts his comparatively low-tech Gen X youth with that of Gen Z’s tech-savant future. As a middle-aged retired rodeo clown turned political satirist, he’s simply fascinated with self-driving cars, GPS systems and the sheer computing power of modern phones. “A Game Boy was my computer,” he sings with the mentality of a cane waving crank yelling for the kids to get off his lawn.

The album is bookended with “I Shagged a MAGA (reprise),” a reimagining of the song through Tina Turner-esqe rock n’ roll sass, and smashed through a filter of Prince-inspired techo-rock. “And now I’m pregnant with an ultra-right wing infant / I shagged a MAGA / Now my tum-tum-tummy has a lump / A cellular clump,” she sings before the song explodes into a wailing guitar solo. The song takes the serious issues of racism surrounding border security and women’s rights and turns them into a song who’s foundation is so tragic that we just need to laugh. Sloppy Scales is here to release the tension brought on by a fear-mongering and occasionally insurrectionist faction of American politics that continues to be terrifying to a large swath of the population.

Sloppy Scales is a concerned rodeo clown who fights for civil rights through satirical songcraft, and relishes roasting any and all authority with his biting humor. He embraces musical cultures across continents to poke fun at white supremacist ideologies. He exposes its absurdities and injustice through the richness of multiculturalism. Even his band is made up of black, brown, white, queer, female, male, people – the lovely diaspora of Earth converging to create art. ThisMachine Mocks Fascists: The Sloppy Scales Songbook will certainly delight the already initiated, but this record has the potential to wake people up to the fascistic plans of the oligarchic elites and racist ideologues who’d rather watch this country burn than allow its cultural diversity to thrive. Sloppy Scales is already midway through writing his follow-up album Sloppy Seconds. Stay tuned!

TRACK LIST:
01 – I Shagged a MAGA
02 – When I Was 13
03 – Sweet Baby Jesus
04 – That’s My Ex-Wife’s New Sex Life
05 – Republicans
06 – Brown Clowns Need Not Apply
07 – Cantinflas
08 – Trump
09 – I Shagged a MAGA (reprise)

ALBUM CREDITS

Written by: Sloppy Scales
Produced by: Guilherme Shakespeare
Mixed and Mastered by: Spencer Willis

Bret Busch – Vocals (lead on “When I Was 13,” “That’s My Ex-Wife’s New Sex Life”)
Cleidinilson “Chocolate” Costa – bass, keys
Daniel Wytanis – trombone, trumpet, keys
Guilherme Shakespeare – guitar, vocals (lead on “Cantinflas”)
Lauren Gracco – vocals (lead on “When I Was 13,” “That’s My Ex-Wife’s New Sex Life”)
Marla Feeney – strings, saxophone
Matthew Wauchope – keys
Mr. Maph – vocals (lead on “Sweet Baby Jesus,” “Republicans,” “Brown Clowns Need Not Apply,” “Trump”)
Natalye Woodson – vocals (lead on “I Shagged a MAGA (reprise),” “Trump”)
Rafael Pereira – drums and percussion
Skye Doughty – vocals (lead on “I Shagged a MAGA”)
Steve Cunningham – steel guitar

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Dave Murphy – A Heart So Rare

New Jersey Americana artist Dave Murphy’s seventh album, A Heart So Rare, is a fearless, heartfelt reflection on human fallibility, love lost, transition, and acceptance. It relays, in honest detail, the mistakes and longing of a man encountering the weight of divorce, all the while embracing moments of surrender, forgiveness, and mystery. There’s always hope for redemption, and this record beautifully catalogs his journey towards it.

Murphy is a cancer survivor, and an accomplished performer who’s toured in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, and the UK. He’s shared stages with Steve Forbert, Suzanne Vega, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing, Alejandro Escovedo, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and his Chasing Ghosts album featured Nicole Atkins and Forbert. He received consistent airplay for his last four albums on AAA, Americana, and folk radio stations across North America and Europe.

Murphy‘s been recognized time and again for his exceptional storytelling through song. Dubbed “a musical Raymond Carver” by Twin Cities Revue, he earned first place in the Great American Song Contest for his song “Chesapeake.” He was named a co-winner at the New Jersey Folk Festival Songwriters Showcase and a finalist in several marquee contests, including Kerrville New Folk Contest, WIldflower! Arts & Music Festival Songwriting Contest, Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, and Susquehanna Music & Arts Festival Songwriting Contest.

Murphy made A Heart So Rare with producer and multi-instrumentalist Chris Tarrow. “Chris played almost every guitar on this record except for my acoustic parts,” says Murphy, “electric guitar, pedal steel, lap steel, dobro, banjo, everything with strings on it. He’s a master.”

Together, they assembled a crew of heavy-hitters including legendary Saturday Night Live house drummer Shawn Pelton (Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen), keyboardist Rob Clores (Jesse Malin, Charli XCX, Lucinda Williams), bassist Richard Hammond (Joan Osborne, Hamilton: Original Broadway Cast), Grammy-winner Ben Wisch, Todd Caldwell (Graham Nash, Crosby, Stills & Nash), Mark Erelli and James Maddock.

A Heart So Rare kicks off with the earworm guitar hook of the alt-country “October Skies” (featuring James Maddock), an introspective and contemplative song rich with layered guitars, including the distinctive sound of a twelve-string Rickenbacker. Maddock provides gorgeous harmonies. It lyrically places us in the New Jersey setting that is quintessentially Murphy — laying in the grass with his love at Princeton Battlefield State Park thinking about all the folks who died there during the American Revolution, the struggles of the past and all of his choices that led to this moment. “It strips me raw / exposing skin and scars / the choices I have made / taking the hardest way,” he sings just before an excellent guitar solo that’s reminiscent of The Byrds or The Jayhawks.

The folk-country “Josephine” paints a picture of a man acknowledging the end of a relationship through the metaphoric and poetic imagery of bar patrons preparing for last call, mirroring Murphy’s real-life divorce. Pelton’s melancholic button accordion complements Murphy’s tempered, laid-back vocals as he sings, “Don’t kick me when I’m down Josephine / I’m not looking for another chance / We danced our last dance / The writing’s…on the wall,” coming to terms with the reality that walking away is sometimes necessary.

The big drum hits and heavy guitar chords of “After the Hurricane” explores the aftermath and devastation of a failed marriage. “There’s nothing left of this town / It’s all just in pieces / Scattered on the ground / After the hurricane / Life goes on,” Murphy sings, illustrating the metaphor of having to rebuild after everything’s been destroyed and there’s nothing left. This twangy pub-rock song has a bittersweet hopefulness behind it despite the brutality of its violent imagery of a town in rubble.

The sad and passionate “Strawberry Red” (featuring James Maddock) has a singer-songwriter vibe with a jazzy electric guitar that feels like Murphy’s secret confidant. It’s a song of acceptance after a big breakup, while acknowledging that the person was special and that they’ll always be a part of you. The laid back and understated verses lead into the emotionally resonant choruses. This song is where the album gets its title as Murphy sings, “Strawberry’s gone / she didn’t stay long / she said she’ll always be free / I wasn’t prepared / for a heart so rare.”

The dark alt-country “Planet of Pain II” (featuring Mark Erelli) reflects on the concept of human suffering. It embraces intense sadness through Murphy’s heart-wrenching vocals, plaintive harmonies, and echoed in Tarrow’s skillfully sorrowful pedal steel. Originally recorded for Murphy’s debut album Under the Lights, this updated version brings a new arrangement, a fuller sound and a couple more decades of confronting life’s pain.

Also a tune from Murphy’s debut album, “I Wish I Could Tell You” (featuring Mark Erelli) is a mystical folk-rock ballad about recognizing the causal fear behind self isolation and unhealthily holding in your feelings. Murphy expresses the desire to tell a lover what’s deep inside of them, but ultimately can’t get the words out. “I’m acknowledging that I’m not ready to share,” says Murphy, “and I still feel that strongly when I sing it. I’ve changed and evolved, but it’s still powerful.”

The down-home “If I Could Fly” embraces the wish fulfillment and freedom that flight offers alongside brushed drums, bucolic banjo and a festive zydeco accordion. It builds on the imagery of a red-tailed hawk and the cycle of life — challenging us to accept our own mortality, welcoming the mysteries that life has to offer, and living in the present.

“I love birds. They’re just beautiful creatures.” says Murphy. “I travel during the migration season to look at raptors, eagles and harriers. But more so, I’m amazed by songbirds, particularly warblers. These tiny birds will travel from South America in the winter to the Arctic Circle in the summertime. I love the solitude and quiet of nature. It’s spiritual for me.”

“Take a Ride with Me” is a road-trip song with a seductive, meandering, folky lilt. The song is an offer, a request, as Murphy sings, “Hey baby… take a ride with me / Take a chance, take a chance and you’ll see.” Caldwell’s exceptional gospel organ solo, followed by Tarrow’s baritone guitar solo, makes this a tune built for making out in your car at roadside attractions as you drive across the country with a new love.

From his album Chasing Ghosts, and originally written as a post-9/11 treatise on the fears of war, “Red” is a song of introspective contemplation. “Red is the color we all bleed,” sings Murphy. This song has sadly been relevant for all of our lives, from the cold-war dread of his childhood to our modern wars in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine. “This song is just as powerful as when I wrote it,” says Murphy.

The album ends with the stripped-down, acoustic folk “One More Time” (featuring Mark Erelli), with just Murphy and Erelli playing gently strummed guitars and singing harmonies. It’s a song of longing and hope that feels like you’re watching an aging, lonesome troubadour walk down a dirt path that forks. One path leads to a new life in the unknown, and the other loops around to a second chance at a life you once had. Ultimately, Murphy puts that decision into the hands of the person he’s singing this song to.

“I’m more honest with my songwriting these days,” says Murphy. “This song is a reckoning for me. My age. Where I’m at in life. My own mortality. I don’t want to recognize this, but I have to. I’m telling this person that there’s still time, but I’m also telling that to myself. These songs are biting and raw for me. I put my heart and soul into this record.”

As a child, music was an escape for Murphy. He received a guitar as a high school graduation present. He cut his teeth playing with friends and learning Neil Young covers. Music became the primary way he expressed his emotions. Through discipline and years of dedication, he honed his songcraft to become a master storyteller.

In the late ‘90s Murphy “knew a guy who knew a guy,” Plinky. Plinky introduced Murphy to pedal steel player Marc Muller, who connected Murphy to the NYC alt-country scene. The three of them got to work on Murphy’s debut album Under the Lights (1998). Muller became intimately involved with Murphy’s career, producing his album Chasing Ghosts, co-producing Stories from Snake Hill and Yellow Moon, and has played on all his records except for A Heart So Rare. Muller toured with Shania Twain for nearly a decade, recorded with and is featured on Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball, and has recorded for Laura Bell Bundy, Branford Marsalis, and Kelly Clarkson.

Murphy put out the EP Things I Can’t Forget (2000) to capture “odds and ends, and live recordings.” In the early 2000s, he formed garage-punk band Dave Murphy and the Hamilton Electric with Claude Coleman Jr. of Ween and New Brunswick, New Jersey guitar legend Brian Sugent. He then reconnected with Muller for Chasing Ghosts (2003), featuring vocals from Steve Forbert and Nicole Atkins.

Murphy was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2003, and he stepped back from being a full-time musician. There was a long recovery period from the surgery and treatments. He played locally, joined songwriting groups, and wrote lots of songs before recording Stories from Snake Hill (2008) with Billy Masters (Suzanne Vega, Alejandro Escavedo). He ultimately ended up finishing the album with his longtime friend Muller.

“If you go north on the New Jersey Turnpike going towards the Lincoln Tunnel, you see the skyline of Manhattan on your right,” says Murphy. “Then you see New Jersey Meadowlands and some smoke stacks. Then, there’s Snake Hill, a gigantic rock formation with a lot of graffiti on it. You can’t miss it. I wanted to have a geographic sense of place, so I named it Stories From Snake Hill. There was a famous mental institution right on the grounds where Snake Hill is, and my grandfather was institutionalized there. It’s the largest burial site of unknown people in the entire United States.”

“My sense of place is New Jersey and Manhattan, along with all the people that I’ve been working with, from our friend Plinky to Marc Muller — on all the records up until this new one, all Jersey people. Bruce Springsteen is sometimes a little embarrassing, but he’s better than Jon Bon Jovi or Billy Joel. But it’s almost like Springsteen is looking over you, looking over everything, to make sure your music is coming from the heart.”

Murphy was back in the game, playing festivals and participating in songwriting contests as a finalist at both the Kerrville Folk Festival and WIldflower! Arts & Music Festival. During this time he met a woman and moved in with her in Brooklyn. He was drinking heavily and the relationship ended messily, leading to his sad and angry break-up record Yellow Moon (2011). He decided to get sober in 2010, moved back to New Jersey and began his journey to recovery and writing the album American Landscape (2016) — made with Grammy-winner Ben Wisch.

“Ben and I were talking about working together for years,” says Murphy. “We finally made it happen on American Landscape. At the time I’d been spending a lot of time listening to Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs album God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise and I loved his touring band, named the Pariah Dogs.”

As it turned out, both L.A. based drummer Jay Bellerose (T-Bone Burnett, Joe Henry, Aimee Mann) and bass player Jennifer Condos (Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks, Bruce Springsteen) were available. So was Boston based guitarist Kevin Barry (Roseanne Cash, Jackson Browne, Ray LaMontagne), So the Pariah Dogs (Bellerose, Condo & Barry) along with the amazing talents of Glen Patscha on keyboards and Lucy Kaplansky on vocals, became the musical foundation of his album American Landscape.

The massive changes that came surrounding the COVID pandemic, including Murphy’s divorce, sparked the creative catalyst to writing and recording the batch of songs that make up A Heart So Rare, an album about accepting your place in the world with hope and gratitude. It wrestles with concepts of mortality and legacy, while reminding us to stay present and embrace the mystery of our unwritten futures. Murphy is a storyteller of the highest caliber and if you’re willing to truly listen, this album will move you.

“The younger me wanted clarity,” says Murphy. “Now, I want to embrace the mysteries ahead of me. I’m already booking U.S. tours for 2025, with plans to hit Ireland, the UK and Europe. I’m excited to explore that life again, to connect with different audiences. This album is a big restart for me. My artist LLC is Phoenix Night Productions because I feel like I’m rising from the ashes. My journey has been a series of rising from the ashes. You might’ve listened to me nine years ago, but here I am, bigger and better.”

TRACK LIST:
01 October Skies (feat. James Maddock)
02 Josephine
03 After the Hurricane
04 Strawberry Red (feat. James Maddock)
05 Planet of Pain II
06 I Wish I Could Tell You
07 If I Could Fly
08 Take a Ride with Me
09 Red
10 One More Time (feat. Mark Erelli)ALBUM CREDITS:
Dave Murphy: vocals, acoustic guitar
Shawn Pelton: drums, percussion, accordion, squeezebox
Chris Tarrow: electric, baritone, resonator, slide and 12-string guitars, pedal steel, banjo, mandolin, lap steel
Richard Hammond: bass
Rob Clores: organ, piano
Ben Wisch: harmonium
Mark Erelli: backing vocals, acoustic guitar & harmonica
James Maddock: backing vocals

Produced by Chris Tarrow and Dave Murphy
Recorded and Mixed by Matt Shane at Joe’s Garage, Brooklyn, NY
Additional recording by Shawn Pelton, Rob Clores, Chris Tarrow, Mark Erelli, Ben Wisch & Todd Caldwell.
Mastered by Fred Kevorkian for Kevorkian Mastering, Brooklyn, NY
All songs by David E Murphy © 2025 (ASCAP) All Rights Reserved

Website * Facebook * Instagram * Twitter * YouTube * Spotify * Apple

“A rugged vocal performance is accented by cascading backing harmonies and delivers poetry about bottling up pain and grief. A chugging arrangement creates a bed of toe-tapping tempos and sleek guitars for a simplistic yet potent single… shaping up to be a landmark release for the folk-rock band.” – Glide Magazine

“Bacon wrote ‘Alone With Grief’ to be a comfort and a balm to those who have experienced loss, but without sugar-coating or toxic positivity.” – The Bluegrass Situation

“Fleetwood Mac would be fortunate to have such endearing well-written songs as these… Annie is the standard California folk-rock Americana artist who has seasoned her work… no rough edges just bracingly smart music… imaginative lyrics, captivating melodies & a formal breadth with her voice… songs can be ethereal, maybe even approach a little surrealism in structure. But Annie deals with reality quite closely…on her terms.” – Americana Highways

“Finely crafted and full of atmosphere. Bacon’s vocal performance is particularly effective; her weariness and hurt are evident in her voice as she delivers a beautiful melody… Bacon exposes her vulnerabilities, confronting heartbreak, grief, loss and identity as she draws us into intimate reflections on difficult personal experiences. This is mature, sophisticated songwriting, music and feeling to lose yourself in. Be absorbed.” – Americana UK

“When I think of people who exemplify the Bay Area’s creative culture, I think of people like Annie Bacon. Highly original, filled with integrity and continually questing…” – No Depression

“Creates a cinematic experience for listeners with haunting melodies and carefully orchestrated harmonies. Her sound varies as each track pulls from various influences, sometimes folk, sometimes indie-rock, but always fiercely emotional.” – Earmilk

“Bacon at her most vulnerable and forthcoming… encourages us to be present in our emotions, even if those emotions don’t feel good. Emotions can’t be just wished away, and ‘Mist’ acknowledges that it’s better to confront them head-on… conjuring up thoughts of Stevie Nicks or Carly Simon.” – V13

“Annie Bacon’s storytelling is exceptional.” – Folk Radio UK 

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Annie Bacon & Her Oshen – Storm

Folk-rock Americana singer-songwriter Annie Bacon & her Oshen’s fourth LP Storm (out June 14) is a meditation on grief. Bacon lays her soul bare as she confronts broken hearts, death and the loss of her own identity, all while utilizing the strengths of folk music’s sincerity in storytelling and rock n roll’s engagement with our primal emotions. It’s an album that starts with a scream (“Secret Broken Heart”) and ends with a whisper (“Worry”). It’s a journey through the most difficult time in one woman’s life; a mature album of heart-on-your-sleeve intimacy and powerfully vivid honesty.

The album kicks off with the soft-rocker “Secret Broken Heart,” with its big guitars that give way to Bacon’s luscious voice and gorgeous harmonies. Stylistically, it lands somewhere within the “Dreams” of Fleetwood Mac, The Cranberries and Brandi Carlile. She sings about self-sacrifice and hiding your feelings for the sake of others, perhaps to your own detriment. “She’s got a shimmer from a secret broken heart / You can see it if you look at her real hard / She drives around crying in her car / Another earthquake ripping another little scar.” At its core it’s a reminder that we never know what someone is going through, because so many of us hide our grief away.

“Walk A Little Farther” is a dark meditation for a broken heart. It confronts wallowing in darkness while holding back crying out in desperation. Its plucky, syncopated pace urges you to take a step, and then one more, to move just a little bit faster than your pain. Its outro works as a prescribed mantra for those who need to hear it, urging them to “walk a little farther / start again.”

“I would go for long walks,” says Bacon, “I knew that if I stopped, my grief was going to overwhelm me. I musically wanted to capture that feeling. I got into this habit of: walk, home, shower (let it burn), say a prayer, write a song. We shot the video near the Huron River in Ann Arbor, where I’d take my walks. I wanted to get the feel of the dreamscape and sadness I was feeling at the time. Grief doesn’t stop. It happens in the daytime. It happens all the time. My walk felt neverending, like I just had to keep going.”

“Mist” has the emotional depth and mesmerizingly ethereal vocal quality of Stevie Nicks or Carly Simon. Bacon’s shifting inward/outward lyrical perspective urges us to be present in our emotions, even if it feels bad. It’s comforting guitar lick anchors the song before leading into a melodic chorus that simply reels you in, despite lyrically never repeating.

“I was driving when the whole song came to me at once,” says Bacon. “My kid was sleeping in the back seat. I was trying to imagine what I was looking for in the mist. I put myself in that space. I realized that I was looking for me. I was the one who was lost. How do you come back to yourself when you feel lost in the world? The only way back, is to be where you are in the world at that moment. Even if it’s painful.”

“Alone with Grief” was written about her deceased father. It’s a song of solidarity to soothe broken hearts and bring solace when grief is fresh and at its most painful. This song is a healing salve with its relaxing bossa nova percussion and Bacon’s breezy, beautiful vocals. It gives off nice, beachy, “The Girl From Ipanema” vibes, but with lyrics that bare a deep wisdom. “When every death contains a thousand more / And you’re holding onto breath but you don’t know what for / When the minutes feel like years because a second changed your life / Just know you’re not the only one alone with grief tonight,” she sings.

“I wanted this song to bring people comfort,” says Bacon, “in a way that I needed comfort when I was so lost in my grief. I was thinking about the experience of early parenting, when I was nursing my baby in the middle of the night … there’s this alone/together thing. It’s just you and this baby, in the whole fucking world, at three in the morning. You’re exhausted. It’s very lonely. It’s very solitary. And yet, there are people feeding babies at the exact same time, in the middle of the night, all over the world. You’re totally alone, and yet other people are having the exact same experience as you at the same time. I wanted to channel that feeling in this song.”

“Can’t Remember” brings grief’s ability to warp our memory into heartbreaking focus: “If our love was strong / I can’t remember anymore / If you were my one true love / I’ve forgotten that by now.” On “When Will I Learn” the sadness of the pedal steel and warmth of the organ accentuate the song’s theme of accepting people for who they are, not what you want them to be.

Bacon brings us peace in the idea that we’re not alone in our pain with songs like “The Island,” where she sings about things you can see but can’t have, like a potential lover or a lost childhood home, and “California Heat” which takes us through the five stages of grief as Bacon walks to her friend’s memorial bench on a hot and dry San Rafael hiking path.

The tender and dark “It Might” breathes. It expands and contracts as it tackles that tricky time of leaving a long-term relationship. It speaks to the experience of meeting the right person at the wrong time, and how insisting on the time we need to heal may mean we miss out on what’s right in front of us. “Dance” continues the idea of letting go, along with the dichotomy of holding on. Where in “California Heat” Bacon sings of her friend “I’m not ready to write a song about you” — now she was ready to embrace her feelings.

“She was a perfect human being,” Bacon says. “She was beautiful, smart, brilliant, kind, playful and fun. She could party with the best of them. She was also a yoga instructor. Now I do yoga every morning to commune with her, to stay close to her. It was absolutely devastating to lose her. One of my tools to get through grief is by continuing to have a relationship with my dead people. This song is a rumination on missing her and who she was. I’m learning from her memory how to stay present, to enjoy and appreciate the things I have in the moment.”

“Dance” also has 172 names whispered into it, names of people from Bacon’s family, community and fans, including that of her father and her friend.

“No Clove Day” (co-written with Alto, MI songwriter Kyle Rasche) is about small moments of self-destruction that remind you that you’re alive, bloody lungs and all. “Love Can Mean” is a reminder to love yourself, and gives you permission to leave a lover if it’s the right thing to do. The forlorn pedal steel emphasizes Bacon’s lyrics that move through your heart like an arrow of truth, even if it’s hard to hear. The gentle honky tonk shuffle of “It’s Okay” is similarly a song that Bacon wrote to remind herself to be kind to herself, and humble in a world that is always going to change.

The album ends with the gentle Lorretta Lynn meets Hurray for the Riff Raff acoustic-folk hush of “Worry,” a soothing balm that closes the record with a message of hope. “Maybe if I worry every angle / I can cut pain off at the pass / Or maybe worry is the trouble / Maybe I should worry a little less,” she sings.

Bacon made this album with Paul Defiglia (Avett Brothers, Langhorn Slim, Erin Rae, Twain) at his Daylight studio in Nashville with engineers Kate Haldrup (Sam Bush, Liz Cooper, Lilly Hiatt, Erin Rae) and Wil Tsyon.

“I knew that I could only work with Paul to make this really tender project,” says Bacon, “even though it was going to mean traveling to Nashville. There’s nowhere else on earth that’s safe enough for me to go where I needed to go on this record, psychically and spiritually.”

On Storm, Bacon provided all the vocals and played her sunburst Les Paul guitar as well as co-producing with Defiglia who contributed bass, keys, synth, organ and drum machine. Defiglia brought in a couple of ringers: Bacon’s college friend Thomas Bryan Eaton (Miss Tess) on guitars, pedal steel & mandolin, and Nashville jazz-drumming phenom Anson Hohne who rounded out the group on percussion. Hohne, as a composer, played with an uncanny sense of sound, space, tone and expression. Bacon came to them with 14 songs and they immediately tapped into something magical. Nearly unrehearsed, they played with a symbiosis, knocking all of the songs out in two days, with a third day for pickups. Mike Clemow and Wade Strange mixed the record at SeeThruSound in New York City, and it was mastered by Piper Payne (Janis Ian, Dolly Parton, LeAnn Rimes) at Neato Mastering in Nashville.

–

Bacon grew up in Maine and was ocean obsessed. She played a little music in high school, studied politics in college, and then moved to Oakland where she met a transgender woman and incredible musician named Nicole McRory. McRory became Bacon’s first musical mentor, and Bacon played in her band for five years. Bacon’s single “Nicki’s Song” (2016) is about her. Later, she was encouraged to learn bass and joined the swaggering country-rock revival band Sweet Crude Bill. Just as that project was ending, Bacon got her first laptop with recording capabilities. She began writing her own songs and Annie Bacon & Her Oshen was born.

Her backing band, Oshen, is a rotating cast of players that’s changed as she’s moved from Oakland to San Francisco to Ann Arbor, Michigan. “When I lost my faith,” Bacon says, “the ocean gave it back to me. My 28-year-old self thought it would be fun to spell it phonetically: O-s-h-e-n.”

Her first album Live at the Red Devil Lounge (2011) was recorded live from the soundboard, capturing a very special night two days before Christmas with Savannah Jo Lack (Lord Huron, Alanis Morissette, Rod Stewart) on violin and James Nash (The Waybacks, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Bela Fleck) on guitar and mandolin.

Bacon found out she was pregnant when she began recording Light to See Dark (2012), and  her son was born a week after the album was mastered. The children of her long-time bandmates Elizabeth Greenblatt and Cristian Hernandez (who also engineered, produced, and mixed the album) would play in Bacon’s home studio in the tower of an old Sears building in San Francisco while they recorded for months. Standout track “A Pounding Corps of Drummers” holds a special place in Bacon’s heart as it was her late father’s favorite of her songs.

Motherhood was a powerful and focusing force for Bacon, and she got serious about her craft in her son’s early years, but it was a time of turbulence and trauma for Bacon leading up to her album Stranded Songs (2013). Her then-partner lost his job, they had to temporarily flee the Bay Area, and her son had a freak series of life-threatening infections.

“It was a record I had to make with my friends [Omar Cuellar, Tal Ariel, Toan Pham and Miles Gordon] to help me heal from what I’d just gone through,” Bacon says. “I had these ukulele songs that I’d bring out at parties, all adorably fun and didn’t fit anywhere in my catalog. It was like a restart as I was stranded in my life and these songs were stranded too. We found home together.”

Bacon & her Oshen began to generate some buzz in San Francisco, but things were in constant flux. Her community was trying to hold itself together in the wake of a changing scene. Warehouse parties were gone. Rents were getting crazy, and her partner lost his job again.

In the midst of all this, Bacon participated in MacArthur genius grant recipient Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, including their only 24-hour performance in New York City and a four show stint at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco.

“The show is about how communities are built by breaking them down,” says Bacon. “My ego flared during a performance, and I just sat on the stairs crying instead of working the show. Life had just become so hard in San Francisco. Everything was a competition all the time. How do I stay afloat? How do I keep my head above water, musically, creatively, and financially? I invited ego death. I wanted my ego to die. Be careful what you ask for, because I did actually end up getting that.”

It was time to turn the tides.They packed up and left the Bay Area for Ann Arbor, Michigan. Bacon wasted no time and quickly found a place in an incredible folk music scene. “I had to break things down and start all over again. Thankfully, the Michigan community opened its arms to me,” says Bacon.

Nothing Stays the Same (2019) was the first time Bacon worked with Defiglia. She recorded three songs with him in his Nashville backyard studio, and was hooked. She made several more trips to Nashville to record the album, but Bacon wasn’t able to enjoy the fruit of her labors as a series of tragedies fell like dominos just as the album came out.

The album’s title track was written for one of Bacon’s closest friends who almost succumbed to her cancer the week before the album was released. Bacon flew to San Francisco to be with her, and thankfully she temporarily pulled through. A week later, her then-mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer, and touring the new record was put on hold. She passed away eight weeks after diagnosis. Two weeks after that, her San Francisco friend passed away. Two months later her father unexpectedly died. A week later, her then-partner lost his job for a third time. The COVID pandemic started five weeks after that. Within a few months, her childhood home was sold in a rush, and she had a fall that left her unable to walk for months. By the end of 2022, her long-term relationship had fallen apart as well, and she was unpacking her life in a small apartment along the Huron River.

“It was a shit show,” says Bacon. “I’m not sure I would have made it through if I didn’t have a kid, to be completely honest. My song ‘It’s Okay’ is about those worst days. It’s a bouncy song, but I had to stop over and over while we were recording, because I’d just start sobbing. No one had heard the song before I brought it into the studio. It felt like a very selfish song. It’s the one that’s really for me, but I hope it speaks to others too. It’s there to remind me how important it is to speak kindly to myself when the world inside and out is burning. Because no one else will do that if I don’t.”

But true to the creative spirit, Bacon leans into her broken hearts and forges earnest, imperfect art. She emerges from these years with a forthcoming novel on themes of motherhood, betrayal, war and forgiveness; a feature-length folk-musical (co-created with collaborator Kyle Rasche) called The Keeper that’s a love letter to Michigan; and a mountain of new music, including Storm.

Though it was made in an emotional hurricane, Storm is an album for those who need solace in their grief; for those who need to feel less alone and lost. She lets us know that it’s okay to not be okay while we’re navigating our way through the storm, and that we’ll all make it through hard times with as much presence as we can muster, a little patience, a little fire, and most of all kindness to ourselves and others.

“There were moments in the thick of the grief,” says Bacon, “where even the people who knew me best couldn’t touch me. But I’ve learned, you’re not the only one who’s alone. There’s this strange sort of togetherness in these kinds of experiences. You could be a 15-year-old who suddenly lost a parent, an adult whose husband died, or a 30-year-old getting divorced. It’s about accepting these moments of your life when you’re going through this grief, and recognizing that this is not only who you are. That there’s another world on the other side, and you’re not alone.”

TRACK LIST:
01 – Secret Broken Heart
02 – Mist
03 – Can’t Remember
04 – When Will I Learn
05 – California Heat
06 – Walk A Little Farther
07 – It Might
08 – The Island
09 – Alone With Grief
10 – Dance
11 – No Clove Day
12 – Love Can Mean
13 – It’s Okay
14 – Worry

ALBUM CREDITS
All songs written by Annie Bacon (ASCAP) / OSHEN music
Except “No Clove Day” written by Annie Bacon (ASCAP) and Kyle Rasche (BMI)
Produced by Annie Bacon & Paul Defiglia
Recorded by Paul Defiglia with Kate Haldrup and Wil Tsyon at Daylight, Nashville / TN
Mixed by Mike Clemow and Wade Strange at SeeThruSound / NY
Mastered by Piper Payne at Neato Mastering / CA

Performed by:
Annie Bacon: guitar, vocals
Paul Defiglia: bass, keys, synth, organ, drum machine
Thomas Bryan Eaton: guitars, pedal steel, mandolin
Anson Hohne: drums, percussion

Website * Facebook * Instagram * Twitter * TikTok * YouTube * IMDB * Spotify * Apple * Hypnotic Bridge Records

“With a buzzsaw psychedelic urgency, the Portland, Oregon-based instrumental surf-garage-psych project Trabants never relents into cruise control. With soft passages crashing into abrasively hypnotic squawls, along with guitar pyrotechnics, Trabants recalls the work of Russian Circles, Explosions in the Sky, and Allah-Las’.” – Glide Magazine

“Exquisite and mesmerising… a fuzzy guitar-driven rolling ball of psychedelia… The guitars are hypnotic and intoxicating, weaving and punching, with percussion that drives it along and adds colour… will leave you wanting much much more.” – The AU Review

“Straddles the lines between surf, garage-rock and psychedelia… a frantic urgency, with biting guitar tones playing silk road psych over rumbling bass and drums. Think Dick Dale with a heavy lysergic dose. Drive on boys, this is quite the ride.” – Shindig! Magazine

“Two slabs of surfy psych-rock instrumentals from a group that’s been doing it longer than you’ve been alive, probably.” – Bandcamp

“Penna’s expressive, commanding playing sometimes evokes Peter Green, while his acoustic 12-string is reminiscent of Hendrix’ rare forays on the instrument.” – Vintage Guitar

“A captivating blend of Eastern-influenced psychedelic music and classic surf.” – Last Day Deaf

“Trabants cull a mood from something like a spaghetti western or a Frankie-and-Annette flick, establish a riff to serve as its appropriate avatar, and blow it up with solo freakouts and slow-burning crescendos.” – The Boston Phoenix

“Chill on the beach in the sun and listen to the crashing waves, gaze upon the beautifully barren landscape of Sergio Leone’s brutal westerns, dance all night to the fuzzed out guitars of the 1960’s sunset strip, dine with class on the coast of capri… Trabants will take you there.” – Grateful Web

” ‘Mantra’ channels the raw energy of the ’60s with intense fuzz effects, setting the tone for a vivid auditory experience that invites listeners to embark on their own psychedelic journey.” – Psychedelic Underground Generation

“The guitar’s primordial fuzz harmonizes with glockenspiels and bells, hypnotically guiding you through your inner mind like a repeated mantra… will remind you of La Luz, Dick Dale, Tame Impala, Ty Segall, The Doors… Trabants continues to captivate with its retro-modern sound and unique visual experiences.” – lacaverna.net

“The time has come to travel to other dimensions aboard the music of Trabants and its psychedelic song ‘Mantra’ … elements of surf, garage and psychedelia, distinguished by its meditative vibes, a reverse guitar and a catchy chorus… generates a hypnotic environment… paints a mental landscapes of beautiful and flourishing nature… transforming our way of seeing reality… This gem is perfect for listening alone if you want to find meaning in your existence.” – End Sessions

“Penna’s guitar shines throughout. His background in film and TV music comes to the fore… Hot stuff.” – Vintage Rock Magazine

—

Trabants – 7-inch vinyl “Mantra” b/w “Surfers On Acid”

Portland, Oregon-based instrumental surf-garage-psych project Trabants is orchestrated by musical auteur Eric Penna and a rotating cast of ‘60s-psych-loving ringers that he assembles like the ensemble cast of a Sergio Leone film. Trabants’ latest fuzzed-out, visceral, psychedelic surf experience is a two-track, 7-inch, 45-rpm vinyl containing the songs “Mantra” b/w “Surfers On Acid” (out via Hypnotic Bridge Records).

Trabants (pronounced Truh-bonts) have shared bills with Dick Dale, Charlie Megira, Mark Sultan of The King Khan & BBQ Show, Yonatan Gat of Monotonix, Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, La Luz, Messer Chups, The Sloths and more. They’ve played festivals across the world including the Surfer Joe Festival (Italy), Tiki Kon (Portland, Ore.) and Surf Guitar 101 Festival (Los Angeles). The roster of Trabants contributors include Pete Curry (Los Straitjackets / Nick Lowe), Samira Winter (Winter), Bryan Murphy (Man Man), Glenn Brigman (Triptides) and members/sidemen of bands as diverse as The Pharcyde, The Monkees, World/Inferno Friendship Society and many more.

Penna’s songs can be heard in Netflix’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Hulu’s Shut Eye, CBS’ Undercover Boss, Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back, films like Surf Noir and T-Rex, and ad campaigns for Mountain Dew, Yeti and others. He was nominated for an Independent Music Award for best instrumental album alongside a placement on the show Becoming featuring Johnny Knoxville.

“These two songs are more deliberate than anything else we’ve done before,” says Penna. “Being an instrumental band, we create a mood. Often times it evokes a place, from Maui to Madrid, from Paris to Tangiers, or from the 1960s’ Sunset Strip to the spaghetti Western landscapes of the Almerían desert. However, these songs serve more as a voyage inside the listener themselves. It’s a record in two parts, side-A and side-B, mind and body represented by each.”

This 7-inch is a mind and body sonic trip to other worlds, where fuzz is the primary alchemical ingredient for life. “Mantra” takes on the aspect of mind as the ultimate psych-rock instrumental. It fuses the best elements of Eastern-influenced psychedelic music and classic surf with its meditative drones, trippy backwards guitar and big expansive chorus. The primal fuzz of the guitar harmonizes with glockenspiels and chimes as its hypnotic core guides you through your inner mind like a repeating mantra. It’s a personal journey inward to the root of existence.

“There’s a heartbeat to the whole thing,” says Penna. “It’s malleable to be whatever you need it to be. To find whatever that source of energy is within yourself. I love exploring music in this way when I’m recording with others. With these particular people. In this particular room. At this particular time. Making this song. Exploring music like that helps me find my mantra, but it’s also a way for you to find your own mantra too.”

The video for “Mantra” was shot over a hot weekend in Palm Springs. The video mirrors an hallucinogenic trip where the protagonist goes on a spiritual desert journey in her mind, and returns in a different form. It blends psychedelic imagery of nature, art and mysticism as she travels through a mid-century modern chic motel and stunning mountain vistas, all through a retro-cool lens.

“I’m Brazilian and loved that Palm Springs heat; I thrive creatively in it.” says Penna, “‘Mantra’ existed in my mind before it was recorded so I shot the whole video to the song in my head. I knew the pace I wanted, and that it should be a journey that could happen in any order. A journey with no start or end. That’s actually my wife in the video. We just loaded up a bag of ‘60s dresses we picked up in weird vintage L.A. shops over the years, with the intention that she’d go film this psychedelic journey with me.”

“Surfers on Acid” takes on the aspect of the body. There’s a sense of urgency in this instrumental surf song’s push and pull. Notes will hesitate, precariously holding on, riding this psychedelic wave of color to its improvised backwards guitar ending. It was recorded to tape, embracing the bleed, not doing punch-ins, and riding full takes to their completion. Penna’s expert guitar mastery is on full display as we’re hit with his groovy labyrinthine melodies and solos.

“On my album Freakout,” says Penna, “we had ‘Mecca,’ which I recorded with an electric sitar/guitar hybrid. This song is a sequel to that. I wanted to flip surf concepts on its head by utilizing my original Tychobrahe Octavia fuzz pedal rather than a clean, reverb surf sound. There’s something primal about that original pedal. The modern version ‘fixes’ the little things I love about the pedal. It’s finicky, but I like that. That pedal really sang with its super dense fuzz, especially through the classic Fender Showman amp that I borrowed from legendary Portland instrumentalists Satan’s Pilgrims.”

Penna grew up in the not-very-rockin’, Edgar Allan Poe creepy meets John Waters weird, city of Baltimore. He started playing music as a teenager, and early on met Andy Bopp of the Interscope Records’ power pop band Love Nut. Bopp took him under his wing to teach him songwriting and recording. He brought Penna on tour to give him an education on the road.

“Andy would take me to record stores while we were on tour,” says Penna. “He’d go through the dollar record bin with me. He liked ‘60s stuff. He’d break down how the modern music that I liked used techniques from the ‘60s and ‘70s. I learned to write songs with these records by methodically studying the forgotten songwriting conventions of past masters of their craft.”

Penna recorded his first album with Bopp producing, a power pop project called Dyslexic Crush. The night they finished, Penna and a bandmate drove overnight to Plymouth, Massachusetts to play it for prospective manager John Lay. They listened to it all day, and he pushed for it to be included in the horror-comedy spoof film Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th. This was the first of a lifetime of Penna’s music being used in film, TV and ads.

Penna moved to Boston when he was 18, just as Baltimore began to swell with a cool indie scene with bands like Beach House, Dan Deacon and Future Islands. He was in talks with Big Deal Records to put out the album, but they folded. But, not before they helped include Dyslexic Crush on a Rhino Records ‘90s teen bands compilation. Penna kept up Dyslexic Crush as he attended Boston University. After an internship at Capital Records in Los Angeles, Penna returned to Boston and opened his first recording studio where he honed his chops recording twelve hours a day.

During this time he helped form the indie/punk band Ketman, who became popular in Boston’s rock scene. They toured Brazil and the U.S.A. They played shows with legends like Mike Watt and Silver Jews. The Boston Phoenix chose them as the best band in Massachusetts in their “50 states 50 bands” article. Their first full-length record El Topo did really well, and their next record Ketman A Go Go did just as well, but didn’t raise them to the next level.

“We were practicing everyday,” says Penna. “The stagnation of that second record was like the kiss of death. I was very much like a workhorse. That music required a lot of agility. I kept in-practice, seven days a week, for a long time. The strict regiment led me crave laid back and mysterious surf instrumentals so I started another band to take gigs Ketman wasn’t right for. I booked the first show with no band or songs and had to build it right away.”

Trabants, named after an Eastern European car made of compressed cotton, was born with Penna at the helm and a rotating cast of musicians, a different Boston supergroup at each show. They played a mixed repertoire of obscure movie soundtrack songs and original surf instrumentals.

“The name Trabants was as random as the concept,” says Penna. “It’s the car everyone was getting around in when I visited Eastern Europe. They’re from another universe. It felt apt. We were this ragtag group of musicians trying to make a living playing music, doing it in an inhospitable environment. Later I found out it means a naturally occurring satellite in German. I always thought there’s something beautiful and lonely about that metaphor. How we, as musicians, were orbiting this strange, undulating group of songs that we picked from all these different places.”

Penna was enamored with the book Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums by Kevin Ryan & Brian Kehew, when he recorded the first Trabants album Highwire Surfing (2011). He recorded in mono, using all vintage gear and techniques at his studio in Boston. Penna wanted to push into the world of music for movies/TV, so he packed up and moved to Los Angeles before releasing Highwire Surfing into the world.

After a couple hard-fought L.A. years of going out every night to make friends and connections, Penna became a go-to soundtrack person for getting vintage sounds. He wrote and recorded everyday, building a catalog of music that can be heard in shows like MTV’s Catfish, Shark Week and multiple Vice documentaries. He scored the film Surf Noir, featuring a version of the classic track “Sea of Love” with vocals from actress Troian Bellasario (of Pretty Little Liars).

He went back to Boston for a summer to record Cinematic (2013), a spaghetti Western-surf album with horns, where every song could be its own movie. Standout track “Dead Men Tell No Lies” would feel right at home in a Quentin Tarantino / Robert Rodriguez collaboration and landed placements in both NFL defensive end Simeon Rice’s directorial debut Unsullied and the romantic comedy In Stereo, both in 2015.

“Trabants encompasses the vintage aspect of my music. Eric Penna could do anything: produce a modern album, write modern pop music, engineer, compose for TV and film, play guitar in someone else’s band, etc… but Trabants is the temple where I hone my ability to capture sounds from the ’50s and ’60s,” Penna says.

Los Angeles saw a surge of retro-psychedelic rock projects in the mid-2010’s, and Penna recorded many of them, including Winter, Basement Babies, So Many Wizards, and the first two Easy Love albums (which includes one of the sisters of Summer Twins). Penna recorded the Trabants album Freakout (2015) during the 50th anniversary of 1965’s psychedelic boom.

“Psych bands were getting big,” says Penna. “Tame Impala went from being a super-weird unknown band to gaining mainstream popularity. Freakout felt like the world was catching up with how cool the ‘60s were.”

Penna recorded Nel Cuore Di Una Terra Selvaggia (2018) over three and a half years, a David Lynchian spaghetti Western album with a heavy reliance on harpsichord, horns and orchestral arrangements. Penna teamed up with singer Prom Queen for “Daddy’s Got a Big Gun,” a slinky, Nancy Sinatra meets James Bond track that breaks up all the bolero gunfight action of this album.

“I couldn’t find a harpsichord that would stay in tune,” says Penna. “I eventually found this guy in Skid Row who had a warehouse of harpsichords. He tuned harpsichords by ear. He let me set up and I recorded for ten hours in that warehouse.”

An avid record collector, Penna produced and compiled a CD for London-based reissue label Ace Records called CYCLONE! -GALLIC GUITARS A GO GO of never before reissued European ‘60s garage music first heard as part of Mukta Mohan’s morning radio show and the Molotov Cocktail Hour, both on L.A.’s KXLU. Also, The Mary Pickford Foundation enlisted Penna’s help in creating modern soundtracks to silent films being restored in their massive archive for rerelease.

Penna was looking to expand when COVID hit. He moved to Portland, Oregon and set up a larger, more comprehensive studio. He immediately started building his stable of players in Portland including Dave Berkham (bass), and his pal Anthony Brisson (drums). There he recorded Lockdown (2020) & Lockdown (part II) (2023), a collection of fuzzy, blues songs that he’d been working on for nearly a decade, that he now had the time to complete. He recorded Lockdown with a previous lineup that included Pete Curry (Los Straitjackets / Nick Lowe), and Lockdown (part II) with Berkham and Brisson—which was their proving grounds for this new 7-inch.

“I’m getting better at my instrument everyday,” says Penna. “It used to be hard to write a song when I was younger. Now it’s akin to snatching ideas out of the air, like fish out of water. Different songs are passing by me all the time. I write a song almost every day and add them to sync libraries. The diligence of writing a lot does pay off eventually. I write a lot of songs for these records, initially, and I hold onto the ideas that stick around for a while. Eventually, I’ve only held onto the best stuff.”

Penna is currently working on the soundtrack for the documentary Blackangelcity which focuses on the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, and celebrates the life of jazz singer Barbara Morrison. Penna also tours as the guitarist with “Planet Earth’s Longest-Running Modern Surf Band,” The Insect Surfers.

The two songs of this 7-inch are harbingers for Trabants next full length LP—recorded with the same lineup, and at the same time as “Mantra” and “Surfers On Acid,” two songs that are built to twist your mind and mutate your body’s third eye open. So, we have more exotica-tinged, fuzzed-out, psychedelic surf guitar instrumentals to look forward to from Penna and his mind-expanding band of psych-rock misfits.

ALBUM CREDITS:
Written, recorded and mixed by Eric Penna at Hemstreet Sound in Portland, OR
Mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East

Eric Penna – Guitars, percussion
Dave Berkham – bass
Anthony Brisson (coordination) – drums