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PopMatters

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PopMatters highlights Tom Freund’s dreamy folk in “Runaround” video premiere

When PopMatters last caught up with Tom Freund, he was gearing up for the release of his latest LP, East of Lincoln. Freund still has plenty to eke from the release with it four months behind him, showing as much with the premiere of a brand new music video for its latest single, “Runaround”. Featuring an impressive array of shots taken from gorgeous natural vistas, Freund’s latest aims to inspire with its stunning cinematography and forward-driving, dreamy folk stylings. Melding a myriad of 12-string guitars with brushes of electronic synths, it’s an ethereal exploration of acoustic and electric influences that the singer-songwriter navigates with ease.

Read more…

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PopMatters premieres Mad Crush’s new song “Stay in Bed”

While Mad Crush are set to release their self-titled debut LP, Joanna Sattin and John Elderkin have been collaborating for years. That goes to explain the artists’ inimitable, undeniable qualities as a duo, playing off of one another with an instantly infectious melding of charisma, heart, and sass. Though Mad Crush is a serious endeavor for the North Carolina front-people and their band—drummer Chuck Garrison and violinist Laura Thomas—it’s their knack for often imbuing humor in their work alongside the heartache that elevates them onto a plane relative to other great duos in roots music, like Johnny Cash and June Carter. They take influence from these very names, and it shows in their delightful, banter-full work.

“Stay in Bed” captivates with its heartful charms straightaway, with a lilting arrangement that accentuates the back-and-forth between Sattin and Elderkin. The acoustic number comes further alive with its subtle, swirling incorporation of Thomas’ fiddle, flourishing in vibrant colors across the song’s bridge.

On the song, Elderkin tells PopMatters, “I’d been listening to Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton duets after a heavy dose of June Carter and Johnny Cash. The sassy back-and-forth songs. But this one popped out as its own thing, thankfully. I like that it uses mundane chores as a way into daydreaming about love. Take a good listen to Laura Thomas’ violin solo here. It’s fabulous, and it helped define the Mad Crush sound. She creates a space that’s a little bit country but also formal in a slightly classical way, too. We all followed her lead from here.”….READ MORE

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LA’s Herbert Bail Orchestra shares new single “Shine” at PopMatters

Right down to the name they take inspiration from, the Herbert Bail Orchestra is all about heart. While a Herbert Bail doesn’t physically exist within the band proper, his presence is felt in all that they do as frontman Anthony Frattolillo’s grandfather—or, rather, the double life he’d led that Frattolillo had only discovered following his passing. Their pulling inspiration from this classy, mysterious individual speaks volumes in regards to the starry-eyed majesty with which they naturally craft their art around. Human beings are complicated, and no one has just a single side to their story, which the Herbert Bail Orchestra willingly confronts with their mellifluous Americana. READ MORE…

 

Baby Robot Media is a music publicity and media service agency with employees in Los Angeles, Memphis, Atlanta & New York and represent musicians from all over the world. We specialize in promotional ( PR ) campaigns for albums, singles and videos, tour press, radio, music video production, music marketing, social media campaigns, Spotify campaigns and creating promotional content. Our mission is to help great unknown bands reach a wider audience and to help already successful artists manage their brand identity and continue to thrive. Our music publicists have over 50 years of combined experience in the music industry. We are known as one of the best in the business.

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PopMatters premieres Nikki & the Phantom Callers’ new single, “Prodigal Daughter”

Atlanta outfit Nikki & the Phantom Callers makes you wanna break out your transistor radio with new tune, “Prodigal Daughter”.

Drawing a wide range of influences that span from 1960s pop country to psychedelic and garage rock, Atlanta’s Nikki & the Phantom Callers issue their debut single “Prodigal Daughter” / “Mamas Should Know” on July 27. The first side, “Prodigal Daughter,” burns with the passion and heartache of an AM radio anthem, replete with hot hooks and a haunting vocal performance that soothes as much as it unsettles.

The track is a feminine exploration of the prodigal son story, the tale of how you can come home again after having lived a wild, wild life. The track features Nikki Speake on lead vocals for verses two and four and Anna Kramer (Anna Kramer & The Lost Cause, the Rock *A*Teens) on one and three. The women, who also spend time in Shantih Shantih offer some deep vocal interplay along the way as well.

Speake recalls the origins of the song, saying, “I’d had the line ‘been around the world shakin’ your tambourine’ in my head for a while and wanted to elaborate. It developed into a call and response song between a mother and a daughter, with the mother full of worry and grief over a rambling daughter. I had a pretty strict Southern Baptist upbringing, going to church three times a week for most of my youth, and I still have all of those biblical stories twisting around in my head. It seems like it naturally took its place as the name of the song for all of those reasons.”

She adds, “The Prodigal Son story has made its way into many modern songs. At the time, I was thinking about my own life and having a bit of a gypsy spirit. I’ve always daydreamed about traveling and having adventures, and usually found a way to make them happen much to my poor grandmother’s dismay. So many times I’d leave with her in tears and have to stuff down my guilt to go experience the world. So, I do think this has a feminist twist, in that traditionally women are the ones expected to stay home to be caregivers and to keep families together seamlessly. It’s typically more acceptable for men to have their rite of passage from rebellion to redemption, while women are more harshly judged. Ultimately, it’s about growing and learning who you are in the world– that it’s okay to rebel, to have a selfish period and to screw up, but have faith that the ones at home worrying about you will welcome you back without judgment. It’s also about the responsibility and heartache of being a parent because you have to know when to let go and believe the ones you love will find their way back home.” READ MORE …

 

Baby Robot Media is a music publicity and media service agency with employees in Los Angeles, Memphis, Atlanta & New York and represent musicians from all over the world. We specialize in promotional ( PR ) campaigns for albums, singles and videos, tour press, radio, music video production, music marketing, social media campaigns, Spotify campaigns and creating promotional content. Our mission is to help great unknown bands reach a wider audience and to help already successful artists manage their brand identity and continue to thrive. Our music publicists have over 50 years of combined experience in the music industry. We are known as one of the best in the business.

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PopMatters premieres debut solo single from The Wans frontman Simon Patrick Kerr

Simon Patrick Kerr‘s solo effort Doldrums arrives on 20 July. It marks a stylistic change for the longtime frontman of the Wans. That trio’s powerhouse live shows and psychedelic leanings earned the band slots with Jack White, Pearl Jam and others as well as a reputation that many acts would kill for. This time, though, Kerr takes a slightly quieter, if no less mind-bending approach, weaving his magic on the acoustic number “Out of Your Mind”.

The track finds Kerr unravelling a personal tale of disappointment and upheaval in a voice that asks us to imagine Thom Yorke taking a cue from Neil Young or M. Ward. The quieter the song becomes, the more the listener finds themselves fraught with an internal conflict as they ask themselves if what they’re hearing is the sound of healing or only the first strike into a wound. READ MORE…

 

Baby Robot Media is a music publicity and media service agency with employees in Los Angeles, Memphis, Atlanta & New York and represent musicians from all over the world. We specialize in promotional ( PR ) campaigns for albums, singles and videos, tour press, radio, music video production, music marketing, social media campaigns, Spotify campaigns and creating promotional content. Our mission is to help great unknown bands reach a wider audience and to help already successful artists manage their brand identity and continue to thrive. Our music publicists have over 50 years of combined experience in the music industry. We are known as one of the best in the business.

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PopMatters premieres Fort Gorgeous’ new single, “Round and Round”

Billy Libby is Fort Gorgeous. Though the Portland artist has already released two albums, Libby’s The Bottom of the SeaBottom of the Sea EP is the first with which he uses the moniker. It was harvested by his pursuit to develop something more than he already had, removing constraints his real name gave him following the development of his folksier past productions. Fort Gorgeous represents a totally different Libby in regards to his sonic output, somewhere between the worlds of shimmering indie pop and lushly orchestrated rock.

For his stripped down take on “Round and Round”, though, Fort Gorgeous adopts a sound closer to Libby’s rootsier beginnings. It sets itself apart from his previous work well enough, focusing more on sparse acoustic instrumentation as it is married to one case of persistent, rhythmic synth. It’s decidedly far different from the arrangement featured on The Bottom of the Sea, offering a different kind of emotion for listeners to sink into. It’s from off of Fort Gorgeous’ follow-up EP, appropriately titled Smaller, which is set to release sometime this autumn.

Libby tells PopMatters, “When I was making the EP, The Bottom of the Sea, I was really torn between how I wanted to present these songs. I eventually landed on putting my energy into a full on rock record with dense production, but promised myself I would do a version of the songs that was a little more stripped down and acoustic guitar driven, as that’s how the songs were written.”

“This song started with an acoustic guitar part that I spent forever crafting. I worked on this version with producer, Sean Morin and engineer Noah Cole. We made this stripped down EP up in Maine over the winter. It was freezing and isolated and I feel like that comes through on the tracks.” READ MORE…

 

Baby Robot Media is a music publicity and media service agency with employees in Los Angeles, Memphis, Atlanta & New York and represent musicians from all over the world. We specialize in promotional ( PR ) campaigns for albums, singles and videos, tour press, radio, music video production, music marketing, social media campaigns, Spotify campaigns and creating promotional content. Our mission is to help great unknown bands reach a wider audience and to help already successful artists manage their brand identity and continue to thrive. Our music publicists have over 50 years of combined experience in the music industry. We are known as one of the best in the business.