LIZA ANNE TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM, BAD VACATION, SHARES NEW SINGLE

LISTEN AND SHARE “BUMMER DAYS” HERE

A TRIUMPHANT CELEBRATION OF MENTAL HEALTH SELF AWARENESS 

“I WROTE A STRONGER, MORE EMPOWERED VERSION OF MYSELF INTO EXISTENCE” - LIZA ANNE

BAD VACATION OUT JULY 24, 2020 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

PRE-ORDER BAD VACATION HERE

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Today, Liza Anne announced the release of her career defining new album Bad Vacation out July 24, 2020, on Arts & Crafts. A collection of art rock anthems, new wave jams, power pop earworms set to establish Liza as a breakthrough independent artist and a bold young voice in mental health self awareness. 

Single “Bummer Days” is a mastery of wry and self deprecating lyrics. Liza stated, “I started this song when I was visiting my parents in 2018. I was reading through old poems and journal entries and circling the drain of my own sorrow stories, which felt like a bit of a wake up call. I have all these ideas of what taking care of myself looks like, but I tend to get in my own way. Bummer Days is me calling myself out. I am the only person who will take responsibility for my emotional and mental health.”

LISTEN AND SHARE “BUMMER DAYS” HERE

The album follows her 2018 critically praised album Fine But Dying, which saw Liza open sold out runs with Kacey Musgraves and Ray LaMontagne, make her national television debut on CONAN, and win praise from Hayley Williams who asked Liza to join Paramore on their inaugural Art + Friends festival. Liza recently launched  #EmotionalHealth2020 rallies - a live mental health focused interview series airing weekly on Liza’s Instagram. Each Tuesday at 6 PM CT featuring Liza with friends and collaborators including Half Waif and Caroline Rose and more on deck for future conversations, including Courtney Marie Andrews and Madison Cunningham . 

Bad Vacation is a self aware account of the emotionally difficult years that followed Fine But Dying’s success. The album reflects on her time on tour and where fresh out of an exhausting relationship, which took a considerable toll on both her physical and mental health, Liza found herself often at her lowest. She learned she was behaving in a way she learned to be destructive. Liza said, “I was a wreck. I left the relationship and was desperate to find emotional safety in someone else. It felt better to have someone outside of me show me love than sit with myself long enough to learn how to show myself love. I was on a bender for emotional safety, not knowing that I could be my own healing space.”

WATCH AND SHARE “BAD VACATION” HERE

She underwent intensive therapy that led to painful reckonings and valuable epiphanies to write her way out of the panic and anxiety, writing odes to autonomy and self-respect and who she wanted to see in the mirror. Liza Anne, shared, “I was writing what I needed to hear. I literally wrote a stronger, more empowered version of myself into existence.” 

Singing to her past selves, Liza also reflected on moments from her childhood in Georgia, which saw her break away from a repressive evangelical religious environment in her teens, “With this record, as a whole, I have felt like I am doing something for my kid-self.” 

Songs “Desire” and “Devotion” were produced by Justin Meldal-Johnsen and the remaining album tracks including “Bad Vacation” were co-produced by Liza Anne, Kyle Ryan and Micah Tawlks. As pre-release singles, they have earned praise from Stereogum to Fader who stated, "pushes her sound even further,” and her muscular guitar hooks and retro synthesizers earning comparisons to artists from St. Vincent to Talking Heads. 

WATCH AND SHARE “DESIRE” HERE

BUY / STREAM “DESIRE” HERE

The latter, Liza discovered during the period when she was mixing the completed album, “I had never listened to David Byrne before and in the last few days of production, someone made a note of a Talking Heads reference and that spurred a rabbit hole of music discovery. I felt like I was watching where I want to be when I’m older. It opened up a whole new realm of possibility.”

The album was tracked in Kyle Ryan’s studio, Wardenclyffe South, in Nashville (With the exception of “Devotion” and “Desire” which were tracked at Kingsize Studios and Chez JMJ), with her touring band (guitarist Robbie Jackson, bassist Josh Gilligan, and drummer Cody Carpenter), alongside Nashville musician, Lou Hayat who creatively contributed to the project, adding french spoken word vocals and synth parts.

The announcement of the new record comes with a ‘Bad Vacation’ micro-site , including a 1-800 hotline, ‘Bad Vacation’ reading list, ‘Bad Vacation’ playlist, ‘Bad Vacation’ bundles, and more at BadVacation.co where you will learn - A Bad Vacation with Liza Anne is better than a good day anywhere else!

PRAISE FOR LIZA ANNE

"Bold in both sound and subject,” NPR 

“Bold 2018 album “Fine But Dying” tackled managing mental illness while falling in love.” LA Times 

“Pushes her sound even further” -The Fader

“Nervy….bright and addictive….subtly devastating.” – Stereogum

“A breath of fresh air.” – Consequence of Sound


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BAD VACATION TRACK LIST
East Beach For Fourteen Seconds
Bad Vacation
I Shouldn’t Ghost My Therapist
Terrible Discovery
Devotion
Change My Mind
Bummer Days
This Chaos, That Feeling
Oops
Desire
I Wanna Be There
Too Soon

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EVANGELINE GENTLE RELEASES YOU AND I EP + NEW VIDEOS

SPARE, INTIMATE ACAPELLA EP, YOU AND I, OUT TODAY, MAY 22, VIA SONIC UNYON

WATCH AND SHARE “YOU AND I” HERE

WATCH AND SHARE “BLACK IS THE COLOUR” HERE

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In anticipation of the vinyl release of their self-titled full-length album, Evangeline Gentle has announced the release of You And I, out today, May 22, 2020, on Sonic Unyon Records, a unique EP that serves as an introduction to the emotional warmth and dynamic power of this emerging singer-songwriter, as well as a mirror held up to humanity's unique historical moment.

“‘You And I’ is the preludial a cappella opening song of my live show, and its message seeks to unite audiences with a sense of ‘sameness’,” says Gentle. “I believe that our deepest connections are found through vulnerability which is why I feel compelled to sing this track completely unaccompanied.”

WATCH AND SHARE “YOU AND I” HERE"

STREAM / BUY “YOU AND I” HERE

“Black is the Colour” is “a traditional Scottish folk song that I first heard as a child growing up on the North East Coast of Scotland,” says Gentle. “Despite moving to Canada at age 11, my love for Celtic folk music persists and performing this song feels like sharing another bit of who I am.”

WATCH AND SHARE “BLACK IS THE COLOUR” HERE

STREAM / BUY “BLACK IS THE COLOUR” HERE

These a cappella tracks were recorded and mixed by Luke Schindler at Toronto’s Revolution Recording, and the companion videos, in striking black and white, were directed by Rob Viscardis. Live-to-tape performances, they pulse with intimacy and immediacy. In a twist of the kind of fate alluded to in the title track, the session took place in mid-March, a week before the world began going into lockdown.  

There’s an inevitable poignancy to vocal-only songs whose lyrics deal with the power of human connection. Perhaps more so now in a time when our shared experience of life is one of being physically separated from each other, and aching to close those distances. 

“And just as ‘You And I’ serves as an introduction to my live show, hopefully the EP makes a fitting introduction before my full album arrives on vinyl in August,” says Gentle.

PRE-ORDER EVANGELINE GENTLE’S FULL LENGTH LP ON VINYL HERE

PRAISE FOR EVANGELINE GENTLE

“Evangeline Gentle's self-titled album is a triumph” - Exclaim! 

“Evangeline Gentle's voice communicates an aching warmth that comes with knowing hardness and choosing softness instead. I didn't know anything about them before this self-titled debut, produced by the great Jim Bryson, and every time I listen to the record, I'm blown away anew by their songwriting and the space they're carving out across multiple genres — indie pop, alt-folk, singer-songwriter —  in a way that feels effortless” - CBC Music

“A talent to be watched carefully. Gentle's voice grabs you instantly with its purity and expressiveness” - FYI Music

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 TRACK LIST
1. You And I
2. Black Is The Colour

 EVANGELINE GENTLE ONLINE
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RICH AUCOIN ANNOUNCES NEW LP, UNITED STATES, SHARES NEW SINGLE

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Rich Aucoin shares new single and video for “Reset” and announces 4th album entitled United States. Aucoin wrote the album, observing the America from the ground level, while cycling across it for Mental Health America (as well as the Canadian Mental Health Association). While taking this Robert Frank approach, Aucoin composed a song for each of the 12 states he pedalled through. The record is as much about the current socio-political climate of America as it is about states of consciousness; as much fuelled by the burgeoning American protest movement or Hedges’ social commentary as it is fuelled by McKenna/Pollan world of psychedelics and meditation apps. 

“I wanted to really see the states alone as an observer with lots of time to process the experience. I’ve loved touring there and was interested in how such a progressive country could elect their current president. After cycling through town after town with decaying downtowns where photos were displayed in the local cafes showing the town in full bloom after the second world war, I could see how his propaganda of ‘Make America Great Again’ really conned people. I spent a lot of time on social media and alone over those months and could see how the states had re-entered a period that felt like the late-60s again with both a resurgence in student protest movements and a renewed interest in psychedelics. I was also meditating a lot and thinking about these things while riding.”

Reset”, the second single after “How It Breaks” from United States, is another protest song from Aucoin with this one being an anti-gun anthem. “I started the ride across America just after the events of the Parkland shootings so it was very much in the news and I wanted to write something immediately that spoke to their frustration with the gun laws in their country.” Aucoin had previously recorded audiences from several summer music festivals including Vieilles Charrues, Evolve, Ottawa Bluesfest and Canada Day in Trafalgar Square in North America and Europe in the summer of 2012 and went back to those recordings to get the large sound of a crowd of approximately 20,000 people for the wordless choruses. The song also features the all-star vocal group of Kyla Carter, Simone Denny, Maylee Todd, Carleigh Aikins, James Baley, Tarik Henry. “I wanted to make something like a Jack White rock anthem but without using any guitar so the only instruments on the track other than bass and drums are just Rhodes and Wurlitzer keyboards played with lots of distortion which we tracked down at Diego Medina’s epic and now closed Old Confidence Lodge Studio (Matt Mays, Jennah Barry, Jon Mckiel). 

WATCH AND SHARE “RESET” HERE

BUY / STREAM “RESET” HERE

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“Reset” Single Art // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Because of the restraints of COVID19, Aucoin returned to the chopping of over a 100 news reports for the video. The video features reports on all the mass-shootings that have occurred since Aucoin started his cycle tour which tally to 36. Like “How It Breaks”, it’s a call to action and demonstrates the efforts being made by the thousands of students across America who will one day change gun legislation in their country if those in power do not help them at this moment. “In going through the hundreds of videos, it reminded me of how often these shooting happen in America and that there’s such a large number that many shootings now need to have a year next to the city’s name to differentiate between them and the mass shootings which have occurred in the same city the year or two before. The shootings have occurred in all types of places and events from a Waffle House and Walmart to a Youtube headquarters and EA Sports Competition. I wanted to remove guns, victims and shooters from the video and have the focus be on protest in response to events. Guns sales go up during times of fear like after a mass shooting or now during the pandemic and so this is an important time to refocus the attention to dealing with the epidemic of America’s gun violence as they continue to rise. Suicide also accounts for the highest number of deaths by guns and I wanted to shed light on that problem as well as the mass shootings occurring frequently. One thing I wish there was more footage of, to include in the video but was impossible to find, was discussion around toxic masculinity and violence against women as many of the shootings include domestic violence at their onset. There is lots of messiness in the discussion of gun violence and mental health as well as both sides seem to be using different dictionaries for their terminology. The NRA is a lobby group masquerading as a civil rights organization but, just as the Tobacco Institute (TIRC) was dissolved in 1998, hopefully the NRA will be deemed unconstitutional as well. Finally, I wanted to block out the guns of this video in the way I blocked out the president in the previous video but wanted to find an object which would demonstrate the desensitized way we see weapons, I picked the dildo because it seems out of place for someone to be showing it off in public and yet the dildo is an object of pleasure not a weapon of death. We should have a bigger reaction to seeing weapons of death being allowed to be touted around in the name of freedom. Working on this was especially difficult in the weeks post the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history while myself and the rest of the community all reflected on what was happening all around us.” 

WATCH AND SHARE “HOW IT BREAKS” HERE

Aucoin has been long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize twice. His music video for “Brian Wilson is A.L.I.V.E.” won the Prism Prize. Aucoin has built a reputation as one of the best live shows in Canada according to CBC Radio3. His albums all sync to old movies like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon with The Wizard of Oz. He has performed all dozens of festivals including Osheaga, The Great Escape, Les Eurockéennes, Berlin Music Festival, Art Basel Miami, Luminato Art Festival, Iceland Airwaves, SXSW, and Pop Montreal.

PRE-ORDER UNITED STATES HERE

PRE-ORDER INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN HERE

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UNITED STATES TRACKLIST
1 Kayfabe - CA
2 How it Breaks - AZ
3 Red Rocks - NM
4 Dopamine - TX
5 Reset - OK
6 This is it. - AR
7 Civil - TN
8 Trip - VA
9 Walls - DC
10 Blue Highways - PA
11 Eulogy of Regret - NJ
12 American Dream - NY

PRAISE FOR RICH AUCOIN

“A bold talent, his grasp of sonics is interlinked with a desire to express something, to challenge both himself and those around him.” - Clash Magazine

"’The Middle’ is an extremely earnest, charming-as-hell reflection on the self at the midpoint of life and death." - Noisey

"This is an anthemic collection of head nodding and foot tapping electro-pop" - PopMatters 

"Easily one of the most mesmerizing tracks we've heard so far this year." - CBC Music (2018)

“Aucoin, a characteristically ambitious artist” - Paste Mag 

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