Tag: Atlantic Records

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Deep Sea Diver Teams Up with Madison Cunningham on Power Ballad “Let Me Go”

Led by Los Angeles-born, Seattle-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontperson Jessica Dobson, Seattle-based indie rock outfit Deep Sea Diver can trace its origins back to when Dobson was 19: Dobson, who has had stints  playing with a who’s who list of contemporary acts, including Beck, Conor Oberst, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Shins signed with Atlantic Records. While with Atlantic Records, Dobson wrote and recorded two albums that she wasn’t completely satisfied with. Atlantic shelved the material and ultimately dropped her. 

After being dropped from Atlantic, Dobson wrote and recorded her solo debut EP New Caves as Deep Sea Diver. The project became a full-fledged band with the addition of members John Raines (bass) Dobson’s spouse Peter Mansen (drums), Garrett Gue (bass), and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synth), who helped to flesh out the project’s sound. 

The Seattle-based band’s critically applauded third album, 2020’s Impossible Weightwas released through High Beam Records/ATO Records and followed a busy year of touring with Wilco and Joseph to support their second album, 2016’s Secrets. “We went into the studio pretty quickly after the tour ended, and I sort of hit a wall where I was feeling very detached from making music, and unable to find joy in it,” Dobson recalls in press notes. “I realized I had to try to rediscover my voice as a songwriter, and figure out the vocabulary for what I needed to say on this album.”

Stepping back from music and the studio, Dobson focused on dealing with the depression she had been struggling with, and soon started volunteering at Aurora Commons, a drop-in center for unhoused people, most whom are drug-dependent and frequently engage in street-survival-based sex work. “I spent a lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a new depth of empathy,” she says. “They’re people who don’t have the luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my songs.”

Co-produced by Dobson and Andy D. Park and recorded at Seattle’s Studio X and The Hall of Justice, Impossible Weight found Dobson and her bandmates digging far deeper emotionally than they had ever before — and pairing that emotionality with a bigger, more grandiose sound. While showcasing Dobson’s dexterous and forceful guitar work, the album’s overall lush textures and mercurial arrangements allow room for Dobson to fully demonstrate her vocal range in a way that she hadn’t before. “’I’d never produced a record before and I started out with low expectations for myself, but at some point I realized, ‘I can do this,’” Dobson recalls. “I decided to completely trust my voice and make really bold decisions in all my production calls—just push everything to the absolute outer edges.”

For Dobson redefining the limits of her artistry went hand-in-hand with deeper identity issues that came up while Dobson and her bandmates were working on the album. “I was adopted and just recently met my birth mother, and found out that I’m half-Mexican and half-Jewish,” Deep Sea Diver’s frontperson explained in press notes. “Discovering my heritage and learning things about myself that I never knew before really fed into that question of ‘Where do I belong?’” Simultaneously, Dobson rediscovered the sense of possibility, adventure and joy that she first felt when she started out as a 19 year-old.  “I think being signed at such a young age messed me up in terms of the expectations I put on myself,” she says. “Somewhere along the way I lost confidence in my own vision, but after making this record I feel a much larger freedom to go in whatever direction I want with my music.”

With Impossible Weight, Dobson hopes that others might reclaim a similar sense of freedom in their emotional lives. “Especially right now when the world is in disarray and there’s so much fear, I want this record to give people room to feel whatever they need to feel,” she says. “I hope it helps them recognize that it’s okay to fall apart, and that they’re meant to let others in instead of trying to work through everything on their own. Because the point is that the impossible weight isn’t yours to carry alone—that’s why it’s impossible.”

Signing to ATO was a significant step up for a band that had self-released its first two albums. The surge of resources resulted in a massive wave of exposure, including a spot on the Billboard charts. 

The Seattle-based outfit’s long-awaited and highly-anticipated fourth album, the 11-song, Dobson and Andy Park co-produced Billboard Heart is slated for a February 28, 2025 release through Sub Pop. The album reportedly puts the band– currently, Dobson, Mansen and Jackson — in the company of acts like St. Vincent, TV on the Radio,Flock of Dimes and others, that have found ornate and magnetic ways to make indie rock by discarding notions of how it must sound or what it must say. 

The album features additional production from Adam Schatz and additional contributions from The Shins‘ Yuuki Matthews, Caroline Rose and Greg Leisz. It was mixed by Park and mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone. 

Some background is needed here: Back in July 2023 while recording in a Los Angeles-based studio, Dobson played a guitar solo but somehow felt nothing. Just a few days earlier, her band played a series of semi-secret shows for fans at a hometown bar, de facto rehearsals for cutting a new record. The sets had gone well, but almost immediately, the sessions didn’t. The songs’ essence seemed muddled, Dobson’s conviction lost somewhere in the 1,000 miles or so between Southern California and the Seattle-based home studio she shares with her spouse and frequent cowriter Peter Mansen. 

On that first night of recording sessions, Dobson broke down, wondering what she was doing there and what her band could do to fix it. For the first time in their history, the band retreated and headed home without a completed album. Did they need to scrap the entire thing and start again with new material? 

As it turned out, no. Following a brief break, Dobson found a renewed sense of self, a trust in her vision for her band and songs and her ability to capture them. After the Los Angeles hiccup a few months before, longtime collaborator and producer Andy Park asked Dobson how the new material was going over at an early fall dinner. She admitted that she needed help. And in that humbling confession, she seen found ways of working that helped her reimagine and reinvigorate the band — and directly led to their fourth album. 

For Dobson, the album is a triumph over self-doubt in which what initially felt like failure became an opportunity to find new freedom, belief, and even strength. 

As it turned out, Impossible Weight‘s massive success caused Dobson to doubt her impulses, and to begin thinking about what an idea’s impact or reception might be as much the strength of the idea itself. During this period of second-guessing, she and Mansen sat near the wide windows of their Seattle living room, with her on piano as he hammered a guitar nearby. Album track “See in the Dark” — a song about coveting your notions, despite the occasional sense they’re slipping away — emerged in that setting. 
 
That particular moment of domestic creation was essential for a number of reasons. Before Impossible Weight, Dobson and Mansen wrote many of Deep Sea Diver’s songs together; this was a return to that bond, which managed to carry over to more than half Billboard Heart‘s material. The pair began recording more at home, too. They borrowed microphones and a small batch of essential gear to record guitars and vocals in their basement. 

When discussions later began in earnest with Park, following the Los Angeles incident, Dobson began revisiting those earlier recordings, realizing that she had captured much of that ineffable spark at home, where the atmosphere was of her own design. Mansen and Park helped convince her that these wasn’t just good enough to use, but riveting in their realness. These early versions became templates to build upon and a frame, and a way for Dobson to believe again in the material, and most importantly, herself. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Shovel,” a Kate Bush-meets-St. Vincent-like tune anchored around buzzing and angular power chords, glistening synth arpeggios, relentless four-on-the-floor serving as a lush yet punchy bed for Dobson’s big, earnest vocal. Much like Impossible Weight, the new single sees the band crafting hook-driven arena rock friendly anthems informed by lived-in, personal yet somehow deeply universal experience. 

The album will feature the previous released album title track and “Let Me Go,”a slow-burning Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey-like anthemic ballad that sees the ballad collaboration with Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Madison Cunningham.

Directed by the band’s Dobson and Tyler Kalberg and inspired by French New Wave films, the accompanying video for “Let Me Go” was filmed in and around Los Angeles on January 5, 2025 and follows Deep Sea Diver’s Dobson and Cunningham through a day in the life, hanging out and goofing off.

“I’ve been wanting to collaborate with Madison for a long time, and I was over the moon when this song came in such an unexpected moment,” Dobson says. “We were just jamming in the studio and I started playing a guitar riff that I’ve had kicking around since high school that Madison started immediately winding around on her guitar. We looped a drum machine that my co-producer Andy Park started playing and a few hours later most of the song was finished. This song felt effortlessly cool from the start; It reminds me of some of my favorite PJ Harvey songs, full of grit & power. We shot the music video with the same spirit, and as two LA natives who both love the city—we wanted to explore our hometown.  Not knowing that it was two days before the LA fires, it has subsequently taken on a new meaning as a love letter to the city we both adore.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Acclaimed Indie Trio Ivy Shares Demo Version of “I’ve Got A Feeling”

The acclaimed alt rock/indie rock outfit Ivy — Andy Chase, Dominique Durand and the late Fountains of Wayne co-founder and frontman Adam Schlesinger — can trace their origins back to several events that feel more like a movie script than real life. Dominique Durand had no intentions of being a musician, let alone fronting a band, when she left Paris for New York in 1989, but some serendipitous events transpired that would change her life: In New York, she met Andy Chase, and the pair bounded over a shared love of 80s British bands like The Smiths and Orange Juice. With Durand’s encouragement, Chase began writing his first songs on guitar, eventually placing an ad in The Village Voice for collaborators. 

That Voice ad caught the attention of Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood, who both arrived at Chase’s apartment with their own plans: They were hoping to enlist Chase for their own project, the Fountains of Wayne predecessor Pinwheel. Although the meeting didn’t yield either group the players they were seeking, Chase and Durand were impressed by Schlesinger’s energy, and they kept up a correspondence. 

Just as Chase and Durand were settling into a new life as a couple in New York, Durand was stopped at Boston Logan Airport, interrogated and then deported back to Paris. That turn of events is part of the obscured but deeply romantic origin story of the band, which was kept hidden out of the fear it would color the perception of their music. For Chase, there was no real option but to leave for France to be with the woman he loved, and figure out things from there. The pair decided that it was inevitable that they would get married, so why not just go ahead with it.

Upon the pair returning to the States with a fiancé visa in hand, Chase suggested they finish the songs he’d been working on and perform them at their wedding — with Durand singing for the first time. Soon after, with the encouragement of a bottle of wine, the pair tracked material in their apartment, Schlesinger was enlisted to play bass, and he quickly fell in love with the material and Durand’s voice. At Schlesinger’s suggestion, they began to share the demo with record labels, and they were quickly signed to Seed Records, an Atlantic Records imprint — with ever having played a live set. Waking one morning to find he’d scribbled a list of potential names on a notepad the night before, Schlesinger suggested they adopt Ivy, and the band was born. 

Tragically, Adam Schlesinger died in early 2020. But the surviving members of the band broke their long silence, to honor their old friend and bandmate, compiling home videos from studio sessions and early tours. Durand’s and Chase’s tribute captures the innocence and wonder of a shared, once-in-a-lifetime moment.

The band’s surviving members recently announced a vinyl re-issue of their seminal 1997 album Apartment Life, which is salted for a March 3, 2023 release through Bar/None Records. The album captures their singular brand of disaffected yet nuanced pop — and it will feature two previously unreleased singles here in the States “Sleeping Late” and “Sweet Mary,” which will be available digitally for the first time ever.

Of course, this will be the first time Apartment Life has been made available on vinyl: Bar/None Records will release a white vinyl edition and a limited edition blue vinyl edition will be made available through Newbury Comics. “This is probably the most important record Ivy ever made,” Ivy’s Andy Chase says of the album and of its reissue. “Me, Dominique and Adam were in NYC going from our apt to the studio every day. It was a glorious time for us – we would just wake up inspired and excited about everything we were doing. We knew we were becoming better at our craft and were excited to show the world. I think with this album we finally succeeded in demonstrating our ability to write and produce great pop songs. It was also the first and last time the three of us smoked pot for the entire duration of an album, supplied by our good friend and co producer Pete Nashel. We also had a healthy budget from Atlantic Records so we had a blast hiring horn players, string quartets, stretching our wings as producers and creating sounds in the studio we had never done before. Songs from this album appeared in countless tv shows, commercials and movies, putting us on the map in Hollywood among the music supervisors and directors, ultimately exposing us to a much larger universe. It was without a doubt the most fun we three ever had making music together. It was a special record for us and still is probably the favorite among our fanbase. For the past 20 years they have been asking for it on vinyl, and with Adam now gone, and IVY signing to Bar/None Records to re- release our entire catalogue of work, it was finally time to memorialize Apartment Life on vinyl.”

Ivy will also be partnering with Record Store Day to release Apartment Life Demos, which will feature, intimate. rough versions of the material from their cult classic sophomore album. The album will be available in participating stores on April 22, 2023 and digitally on July 21, 2023. Ivy’s Chase explains: “Me & Dominique thought it would be a fun idea to go back and find all the demo versions of each song from Apartment Life, sequence them in the same order, and release it. While at times a bit embarrassing or cringeworthy (for Dominique and I), and oftentimes funny, it’s a unique window into the world of IVY as we moved closer to getting ready to record what would be Apartment Life.

Apartment Life Demos‘ first single is the demo version of “I’ve Got A Feeling.” While being a bit rough around the edges, as a demo often is, the demo captures the sweet guilelessness that’s the heart of both the song and the album. But it also reveals a remarkable attention to craft from such a young band.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

The acclaimed alt rock/indie rock outfit Ivy — Andy Chase, Dominique Durand and the late Fountains of Wayne co-founder and frontman Adam Schlesinger — can trace their origins back to several events that feel more like a movie script than real life: Dominique Durand had no intentions of being a musician, let alone fronting a band, when she left Paris for New York in 1989, but some serendipitous events transpired that would change her life. In New York, she met Andy Chase, and the pair bounded over a shared love of 80s British bands like The Smiths and Orange Juice. With Durand’s encouragement, Chase began writing his first songs on guitar, eventually placing an ad in The Village Voice for collaborators.

That Voice ad caught the attention of Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood, who both arrived at Chase’s apartment with their own plans: They were hoping to enlist Chase for their own project, the Fountains of Wayne predecessor Pinwheel. Although the meeting didn’t yield either group the players they ere seeking, Chase and Durand were impressed by Schlesinger’s energy, and they kept up a correspondence.

Just as Chase and Durand were settling into a new life as a couple in New York, Durand was stopped at Boston Logan Airport, interrogated and then deported back to Paris. That turn of events is part of the obscured but deeply romantic origin story of the band, which was kept hidden out of fear it would color the perception of their music. But as the story goes, for Chase, there was no real option but to leave for France with the women he loved and then figure things out from here. The pair decided that it was only inevitable that they would get married anyway, so why not just go ahead with it.

Upon the pair returning to the States with a fiancé visa in hand, Chase suggested they finish the songs he’d been working on and perform them at the wedding — with Durand singing for the first time. Soon after, with the encouragement of a bottle of wine, the pair tracked material in their apartment, Schlesinger was enlisted to play bass, and he quickly fell i love with the material and Durand’s voice. At Schlesinger’s suggestion, they began to share the demo with record labels, and they were quickly signed to Seed Records, an Atlantic Records imprint — with ever having played a live set. Waking one morning to find he’d scribbled a list of potential names on a notepad the night before, Schlesinger suggested they adopt Ivy, and the band was born. 

Sadly, Adam Schlesinger died in early 2020. But the surviving members of the band broke their long silence that year, to honor their old friend and bandmate, compiling home videos from studio sessions and early tours. Their tribute captures the innocence and wonder of a shared once-in-a-lifetime moment.

The band’s surviving members recently announced a vinyl re-issue of their seminal 1997 album Apartment Life, which is salted for a March 3, 2023 release through Bar/None Records. The album captures their singular brand of disaffected yet nuanced pop — and it will feature two previously unreleased singles here in the States “Sleeping Late” and “Sweet Mary,” which will be available digitally for the first time ever.

Of course, this will be the first time Apartment Life has been made available on vinyl: Bar/None Records will release a white vinyl edition and a limited edition blue vinyl edition will be made available through Newbury Comics. “This is probably the most important record Ivy ever made,” Ivy’s Andy Chase says of the album and of its reissue. “Me, Dominique and Adam were in NYC going from our apt to the studio every day. It was a glorious time for us – we would just wake up inspired and excited about everything we were doing. We knew we were becoming better at our craft and were excited to show the world. I think with this album we finally succeeded in demonstrating our ability to write and produce great pop songs. It was also the first and last time the three of us smoked pot for the entire duration of an album, supplied by our good friend and co producer Pete Nashel. We also had a healthy budget from Atlantic Records so we had a blast hiring horn players, string quartets, stretching our wings as producers and creating sounds in the studio we had never done before. Songs from this album appeared in countless tv shows, commercials and movies, putting us on the map in Hollywood among the music supervisors and directors, ultimately exposing us to a much larger universe. It was without a doubt the most fun we three ever had making music together. It was a special record for us and still is probably the favorite among our fanbase. For the past 20 years they have been asking for it on vinyl, and with Adam now gone, and IVY signing to Bar/None Records to re- release our entire catalogue of work, it was finally time to memorialize Apartment Life on vinyl.”

The surviving members of Ivy shared the re-issue’s first single, “Sleeping Late,” which was originally released as a bonus track for the Japanese edition of the album. Centered around a jaunty, Beatles-esque arrangement paired with Durand’s innocent, seemingly naive delivery. The song sees the trio managing a difficult balance of being cute without being twee, and tongue-in-cheek irony without sneering or mean-spiritedness.

“Despite being quite ambitious and driven, Dominique, Adam and I were not early risers, at all. Although ‘Sleeping Late’ started as a joke between us, underneath its cutesy, ironic exterior lives a more serious quintessential urban tale about being stuck at home and not wanting to leave,” Chase says. “Dominique always loved the Velvet Underground song ‘After Hours,’ loved the way Mo Tucker sang it, and tried to embody Mo’s innocent naivety and spirit in her vocal performance. We kept it simple and dry, inspired by early Beatles productions. We didn’t put it on the Apartment Life album since it was meant to be silly and sort of tongue and cheek, but we ultimately used it as a bonus track for the Japanese release, figuring over there most people wouldn’t understand the lyrics and never know what lazy idiots we were.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Deep Sea Diver on NPR Tiny Desk (at Home)

Led by its accomplished, Los Angeles-born, Seattle-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontperson Jessica Dobson, the Seattle-based indie rock act Deep Sea Diver can trace its origins back to when Dobson was 19: Dobson, who has had stints  playing with a who’s who list of contemporary acts, including Beck, Conor Oberst, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Shins signed with Atlantic Records. And while with Atlantic Records, Dobson wrote and recorded two albums that she wasn’t completely satisfied with — and Atlantic ultimately shelved the material and dropped her from the label.

After leaving Atlantic, Dobson wrote and recorded her official solo debut EP New Caves under the name Deep Sea Diver. The project expanded to a full-fledged band with the addition of John Raines (bass) Dobson’s spouse Peter Mansen (drums), Garrett Gue (bass), and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synth), who helped to flesh out the project’s sound. The band went on to release two albums and an EP — 2012’s self-released debut History Speaks, 2014’s Always Waiting EP and 2016’s acclaimed Secrets.

Last October saw the release of the band’s critically applauded third album Impossible Weight through High Beam Records/ATO Records, and the album followed after a busy year of touring with Wilco and Joseph. Sonically and thematically, the album stemmed from a period of sometimes brutal self-examination — a process that began for Dobson, not long after Deep Sea Diver finished touring to support Secrets. “We went into the studio pretty quickly after the tour ended, and I sort of hit a wall where I was feeling very detached from making music, and unable to find joy in it,” Dobson recalls in press notes. “I realized I had to try to rediscover my voice as a songwriter, and figure out the vocabulary for what I needed to say on this album.”

Stepping back from music and the studio, Dobson focused on dealing with the depression she had been struggling with, and soon started volunteering for Aurora Commons, a drop-in center for unhoused people, most whom are drug-dependent and frequently engage in street-survival-based sex work. “I spent a lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a new depth of empathy,” she says. “They’re people who don’t have the luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my songs.”

Co-produced by Dobson and Andy D. Park and recorded at Seattle’s Studio X and The Hall of Justice, Impossible Weight finds Dobson and company digging far deeper emotionally than ever before — and pairing it with a bigger, more grandiose sound. While revealing Dobson’s dexterous and powerful guitar work, the album’s lush textures and mercurial arrangements allow room for Dobson to fully demonstrate her vocal range in a way that she hadn’t before. “’I’d never produced a record before and I started out with low expectations for myself, but at some point I realized, ‘I can do this,’” Dobson recalls. “I decided to completely trust my voice and make really bold decisions in all my production calls—just push everything to the absolute outer edges.”

Interestingly, for Dobson redefining the limits of her artistry goes hand-in-hand with deeper identity issues that came up while Dobson and her bandmates were working on the album. “I was adopted and just recently met my birth mother, and found out that I’m half-Mexican and half-Jewish,” Deep Sea Diver’s frontperson explains. “Discovering my heritage and learning things about myself that I never knew before really fed into that question of ‘Where do I belong?’” Simultaneously, Dobson rediscovered the sense of possibility, adventure and joy that she first felt when she started out as a 19 year-old.  “I think being signed at such a young age messed me up in terms of the expectations I put on myself,” she says. “Somewhere along the way I lost confidence in my own vision, but after making this record I feel a much larger freedom to go in whatever direction I want with my music.”

With Impossible Weight, Dobson hopes that others might reclaim a similar sense of freedom in their emotional lives. “Especially right now when the world is in disarray and there’s so much fear, I want this record to give people room to feel whatever they need to feel,” she says. “I hope it helps them recognize that it’s okay to fall apart, and that they’re meant to let others in instead of trying to work through everything on their own. Because the point is that the impossible weight isn’t yours to carry alone—that’s why it’s impossible.”

Now, if you were following this site last year — bless you for that, seriously — you may recall that I wrote about a couple of the album’s singles:

“Lights Out,”  a track that contained multitudes, as it was deviant and anthemic yet delicate. Centered around Dobson’s expressive guitar work, a thunderous rhythm section an enormous raise-your-beer-in-the-air-and-shout-along worthy hook and Dobson’s equally expressive vocals, the song featured a bold and fearlessly vulnerable, who seems to say to the listener “It’s okay to admit that you’re not okay and that you may need some help to get you out of life’s dark places.”
Album title track “Impossible Weight,” a track that’s one-part New Wave and one-part arena rock with enormous hooks, twinkling synths, Dobson’s expressive and explosive guitar work rooted in heart-fully-on-sleeve songwriting. And while revealing Dobson’s unerring knack for crafting an anthemic hook, the song captures a narrator on the emotional brink with an novelistic attention to psychological detail. A guest spot from Sharon Van Etten, managed to add an additional emotional punch.

Deep Sea Diver recently filmed a NPR Tiny Desk (at Home) Concert in a space that the band built to recreate the iconic Red Room in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.  “There were countless times this past year that I wanted to be transported out of my house and into a different world,” says frontwoman Jessica Dobson. “One of my favorite and most inspiring worlds is that of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, which was filmed very close to where I live in Washington.The band is joined by Joseph’s Natalie Schepman and Megan Closner, who contribute backing vocals for three songs of the live set — and there’s a guest appearance from Dobson’s adorable beagle Henry, “the one being that was happy we weren’t touring,” Dobson says.

The live set features joyous and heartfelt versions of the aforementioned “Lights Out” and “Impossible Weight,” as well as “Wishing” and the standalone single “Stop Pretending,” which was named one of NPR Music’s 100 Best Songs of 2020 — and evokes the despair and unease we’ve all felt over the past year or so.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Monophonics’ Kelly Finnigan Releases a Strutting and Funky Christmas Tune

Kelly Finnigan (vocals, keys) is best known for being the frontman of the acclaimed West Coast-based soul outfit Monophonics. And since their formation, the act which also features Austin Bohlman (drums), Ryan Scott (trumpet, backing vocals, percussion), and Max Ramey (bass) has developed and honed a sound and approach that continues the traditions of early Motown Records, Stax Records, Muscle Shoals, Daptone Records and Dunham Records.

Earlier this year, Monophonics released their third album It’s Only Us and the album further cements their reputation for being an act that’s particularly keen on crafting and playing a heavier and digger take on classic soul — but while revealing a band gently refining their sound to incorporate warmer textures. Thematically, It’s Only Us may arguably be the hardest hitting of their catalog as it touches upon desperately needed calls for unity, understanding, resilience and acceptance in our fractious and divisive world.

Capping out what has been a busy year, Finnigan’s sophomore album Joyful Sound sees its official release today through Colemine Records digitally. (Holly Berry Red will be releasing the vinyl on December 11, 2020). Produced by Finnigan, Joyful Sound is the third album he’s helmed in the past two years — his solo debut, last year’s The Tales People Tell and Monophonics’ It’s Only Us. While continuing Finnigan’s growing reputation for specializing in the classic R&B and soul production and sound, the new album is imbed with a joyful, holiday spirit.

Featuring members of Durand Jones & The Indications, The Dap-Kings, Ghost Funk Orchestra, Monophonics, Thee Sinseers, Orgōne, Ikebe Shakedown, Jason Joshua & The Beholders, The True Loves, Jungle Fire, Delvon Lamar Organ Trio, The Jive Turkeys, The Ironsides, and The Harlem Gospel Travelers, as well as Ben Pirani, Neal Francis and Rudy De Anda among others, Joyful Sound is inspired by Atlantic Records‘ Soul Christmas, Phil Spector‘s A Christmas Gift For You and Rotary Connection‘s Peace.

“I want people to feel joy and hope. I want the music to remind them what they are thankful for,” Finnigan says in press notes about Joyful Sound. “The songs and mood of the music should spark a feeling that it is a special time of year but also that it can also be a very difficult time for others. Holidays are about bringing people together to celebrate and I want this record to be a soundtrack for those celebrating but also a reminder that a lot of people are still struggling regardless if it’s Christmas or not. Most Importantly, I want them to hear the love and passion that went into the music. I’m lucky to have some incredible musicians and artists on the record and I hope they can hear the joy that everyone put into their performance. There’s a feeling of magic and nostalgia that lives in those classic Christmas songs and I believe I was able to capture some of that on this record. Christmas has become a grand event in most places in the world but we all have to remember that the reason this holiday is special for most is because it brings people together and reminds us that our friends and family are what’s most important.”

Last month, I wrote about the lush Motown Records-like “No Time To Be Sad,” a classic make-up song that finds the song’s narrator pleading to his lover that they should stop their quarreling and make it a romantic Christmas — because that’s not the season to be bitter or breakup. “Santa’s Watching You,” Joyful Sound’s latest single finds Finnigan giving a strutting gospel burner by The Sacred Four “Somebody’s Watching You” a playful Christmas take in which Santa is now looking at all of us in judgement of our behavior, actions, words and deeds. So you better get your act straight and fly right — or Santa will make sure you get coal and fiery, eternal damnation.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Monophonics’ Kelly Finnigan Releases a Gorgeous and Soulful Christmas Song

Over the past year or so I’ve written a bit about the acclaimed West Coast-based soul outfit Monophonics — Austin Bohlman (drums), Ryan Scott (trumpet, backing vocals, percussion), Max Ramey (bass) and Kelly Finnigan (lead vocals, keys) – and since their formation, the members of the band have developed a sound and approach that continues in the tradition of Stax Records, Muscle Shoals, Daptone Records and Dunham Records. Much like their influences, the Bay Area-based soul outfit’s material is generally centered round a lush, cinematic sound that draws from classic soul, heavy funky and psych rock, recorded on vintage analog gear to give it that period specific sound. Naturally, they’ve paired that with a healthy amount of old-fashioned woodshedding, crafting and McDonald’s and Finnigan’s late night overdubs and studio work. “We’re from the same school as the producers from the studios we love. We use the tools that we have to make the best records we can,” the band said in press notes.

Earlier this year, Monophonics released their third album It’s Only Us earlier this year. The album further cements their reputation for being an act that’s particularly keen to creating and playing a heavier and edgier take on classic soul, while revealing a band that gently refining their sound to incorporate some warmer textures. Thematically, the album’s material focuses son much-needed messages of unity in our fractious and divisive world and of strength, resilience and acceptance.

Capping off a very busy year, Monophonics’ frontman Kelly Finnigan will be releasing his full-length album Joyful Sound through Holly Berry Red (vinyl) and Colemine Records (digitally and CD) on November 24, 2020. Produced by Finnigan, the album will be the third album he’s helmed in the past two years, including his solo debut effort The Tales People Tell and Monophonics aforementioned It’s Only Us. Interestingly, Joyful Sound finds Finnigan crafting and production an album with the elements of a classic R&B record — but with a joyful, holiday spirit.

Featuring members of Durand Jones & The Indications, The Dap-Kings, Ghost Funk Orchestra, Monophonics, Thee Sinseers, Orgōne, Ikebe Shakedown, Jason Joshua & The Beholders, The True Loves, Jungle Fire, Delvon Lamar Organ Trio, The Jive Turkeys, The Ironsides, and The Harlem Gospel Travelers, as well as Ben Pirani, Neal Francis and Rudy De Anda among others, Joyful Sound is inspired by Atlantic Records’ Soul Christmas, Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift For You and Rotary Connection’s Peace.

“I want people to feel joy and hope. I want the music to remind them what they are thankful for,” Finnigan says in press notes about Joyful Sound. “The songs and mood of the music should spark a feeling that it is a special time of year but also that it can also be a very difficult time for others. Holidays are about bringing people together to celebrate and I want this record to be a soundtrack for those celebrating but also a reminder that a lot of people are still struggling regardless if it’s Christmas or not. Most Importantly, I want them to hear the love and passion that went into the music. I’m lucky to have some incredible musicians and artists on the record and I hope they can hear the joy that everyone put into their performance. There’s a feeling of magic and nostalgia that lives in those classic Christmas songs and I believe I was able to capture some of that on this record. Christmas has become a grand event in most places in the world but we all have to remember that the reason this holiday is special for most is because it brings people together and reminds us that our friends and family are what’s most important.”

“No Time To Be Sad,” Joyful Sound’s latest single finds Finnigan firmly establishing himself as key producer, songwriter and producer in the contemporary soul scene. Centered around a lush, Motown Records-inspired arrangement, complete with soaring strings and brooding horns paired with Finnigan’s achingly tender falsetto and a gorgeous melody “No Time To Be Sad” is a classic, make-up tune in which the song’s couple finds a way to make up and have a romantic Christmas — but interestingly enough, the song is the sort of makeup song that can be played almost any time because the sentiment at its core is so deeply universal and so heartfelt.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Deep Sea Diver Teams Up with Sharon Van Etten on the Vulnerable and Anthemic “Impossible Weight”

Led by its accomplished, Los Angeles-born, Seattle-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontperson Jessica Dobson, the Seattle-based indie rock act Deep Sea Diver can trace its origins back to when Dobson was 19: Dobson, who has had stints  playing with a who’s who list of contemporary acts, including Beck, Conor Oberst, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Shins signed with Atlantic Records. And while with Atlantic Records, Dobsons wrote and recorded two albums that she wasn’t completely satisfied with — and Atlantic ultimately shelved the material and dropped her from the label.

After leaving Atlantic, Dobson wrote and recorded her official solo debut EP New Caves under the name Deep Sea Diver. The project expanded to a full-fledged band with the addition of John Raines (bass) Dobson’s spouse Peter Mansen (drums), Garrett Gue (bass), and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synth), who helped to flesh out the project’s sound. Since then the band has released two albums — 2012’s self-released debut History Speaks, 2014’s Always Waiting EP and 2016’s acclaimed Secrets.

The band’s third album Impossible Weight is slated for an October 16, 2020 release through High Beam Records/ATO Records, and the album follows a busy year of touring with Wilco and Joseph. The album’s sonic and emotional expanse reportedly stems from a period of sometimes brutal self-examination — a process that began for Dobson, not long after the Seattle-based indie quartet finished touring to support Secrets. “We went into the studio pretty quickly after the tour ended, and I sort of hit a wall where I was feeling very detached from making music, and unable to find joy in it,” Dobson recalls in press notes. “I realized I had to try to rediscover my voice as a songwriter, and figure out the vocabulary for what I needed to say on this album.”

Stepping back from music and the studio, Dobson focused on dealing with the depression she had been struggling with, and soon started volunteering for Aurora Commons, a  drop-in center for unhoused people, most whom are drug-dependent and frequently engage in street-survival-based sex work. “I spent a lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a new depth of empathy,” she says. “They’re people who don’t have the luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my songs.”

Co-produced by Dobson and Andy D. Park and recorded at Seattle’s Studio X and The Hall of Justice, Impossible Weight finds Dobson and company digging far deeper emotionally than ever before — and pairing it with a bigger, more grandiose sound. While revealing Dobson’s dexterous and powerful guitar work, the album’s lush textures and mercurial arrangements allow room for Dobson to fully demonstrate her vocal range in a way that she hadn’t before. “’I’d never produced a record before and I started out with low expectations for myself, but at some point I realized, ‘I can do this,’” Dobson recalls. “I decided to completely trust my voice and make really bold decisions in all my production calls—just push everything to the absolute outer edges.” 

Interestingly, for Dobson redefining the limits of her artistry goes hand-in-hand with deeper identity issues that came up while Dobson and her bandmates were working on the band’s third album. “I was adopted and just recently met my birth mother, and found out that I’m half-Mexican and half-Jewish,” Deep Sea Diver’s frontperson explains. “Discovering my heritage and learning things about myself that I never knew before really fed into that question of ‘Where do I belong?’” Simultaneously, Dobson rediscovered the sense of possibility, adventure and joy that she first felt when she started out as a 19 year-old.  “I think being signed at such a young age messed me up in terms of the expectations I put on myself,” she says. “Somewhere along the way I lost confidence in my own vision, but after making this record I feel a much larger freedom to go in whatever direction I want with my music.”  

With Impossible Weight, Dobson hopes that others might reclaim a similar sense of freedom in their emotional lives. “Especially right now when the world is in disarray and there’s so much fear, I want this record to give people room to feel whatever they need to feel,” she says. “I hope it helps them recognize that it’s okay to fall apart, and that they’re meant to let others in instead of trying to work through everything on their own. Because the point is that the impossible weight isn’t yours to carry alone—that’s why it’s impossible.”

Last month, I wrote about Impossible Weight’s third single “Lights Out,”  a track that managed to be defiant and anthemic, yet delicate and vulnerable, centered around a slick studio sheen, Dobson’s expressive guitar work, a thunderous and propulsive rhythm section, an enormous raise-your-beer-in-the-air-and-shout-along worthy hook paired with Dobson’s equally expressive vocals, which alternated between an achingly tender croon and a self-assured, courageous growl. And perhaps unlike many of the songs I’ve previously written about this year, the song features a bold and fearlessly vulnerable narrator, who seems to say “It’s perfectly okay to recognize and admit that you’re not okay and that you need help to climb out of dark places.” 

Impossible Weight’s fourth and latest single, album title track “Impossible Weight” continues a run of slickly polished material that nods at New Wave and arena rock with enormous hooks, twinkling synths, Dobson’s expressive and explosive guitar work paired with urgent, heart-fully-on-sleeve songwriting. While revealing Dobson’s unerring knack for crafting an anthemic hook, the song captures a narrator on the emotional brink with an uncanny psychological attention to detail. And the song features a guest spot from Sharon Van Etten, which gives the song an even bigger emotional punch. 

Co-directed by the band’s Jessica Dobson and Peter Hansen along with Tyler Kalberg, the cinematically shot visual for “Impossible Weight” features Dobson taking her light box, which is a big part of the band’s live shows to a variety of gorgeous and untraditional places — including the desert, the woods, a city rooftop, in front of a suburban house, as well as an empty concert venue. “For this video I thought, well… if we cant play shows right now then I’m going to take my light box (a prop we bring on tour that I stand on top of when I play guitar solos) and I’m going to bring it into a myriad of untraditional places,” Deep Sea Diver’s Jessica Dobson explains. “We wanted to create scenes of absolute beauty, of loneliness, of power—of the human spirit being fully alive, even in a time of sadness and uncertainty.”

“I chose The Neptune as the final shot because that is the venue in which I saw Sharon Van Etten play at the night before we recorded the song,” Dobson continues. “I’ve been a huge fan or hers for quite some time and I was deeply moved and inspired by that show. The next day, I literally said out loud as we were recording, “I wonder if Sharon would ever sing on this?” Having never met her, it was definitely a pipe dream question that somehow ended up working out and I’m eternally grateful for it. She brought so much to this song and brought it alive even more.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Seattle’s Deep Sea Diver Releases an Anthemic and Vulnerable New Single

Led by its accomplished, Los Angeles-born, Seattle-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontperson Jessica Dobson, the Seattle-based indie rock act Deep Sea Diver can trace its origins back to when Dobson was 19: Dobson, who has had stints  playing with a who’s who list of contemporary acts, including Beck, Conor Oberst, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Shins signed with Atlantic Records. And while with Atlantic Records, Dobsons wrote and recorded two albums that she wasn’t completely satisfied with — and Atlantic ultimately shelved the material and dropped her from the label. 

After leaving Atlantic, Dobson wrote and recorded her official solo debut EP New Caves under the name Deep Sea Diver. The project expanded to a full-fledged band with the addition of John Raines (bass) Dobson’s spouse Peter Mansen (drums), Garrett Gue (bass), and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synth), who helped to flesh out the project’s sound. Since then the band has released two albums — 2012’s self-released debut History Speaks, 2014’s Always Waiting EP and 2016’s acclaimed Secrets. 

Slated for an October 16, 2020 release through High Beam Records/ATO Records, Deep Sea Diver’s third album Impossible Dream follows a busy year of touring with Wilco and Joseph. The album’s sonic and emotional expanse reportedly stems from a period of sometimes brutal self-examination — a process that began for Dobson, not long after the Seattle-based indie quartet finished touring to support Secrets. “We went into the studio pretty quickly after the tour ended, and I sort of hit a wall where I was feeling very detached from making music, and unable to find joy in it,” Dobson recalls in press notes. “I realized I had to try to rediscover my voice as a songwriter, and figure out the vocabulary for what I needed to say on this album.”

Stepping back from music and the studio, Dobson focused on dealing with the depression she had been struggling with, and soon started volunteering for Aurora Commons, a  drop-in center for unhoused people, most whom are drug-dependent and frequently engage in street-survival-based sex work. “I spent a lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a new depth of empathy,” she says. “They’re people who don’t have the luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my songs.”

Co-produced by Dobson and Andy D. Park and recorded at Seattle’s Studio X and The Hall of Justice, Impossible Weight finds Dobson and company digging far deeper emotionally than ever before — and pairing it with a bigger, more grandiose sound. While revealing Dobson’s dexterous and powerful guitar work, the album’s lush textures and mercurial arrangements allow room for Dobson to fully demonstrate her vocal range in a way that she hadn’t before. “’I’d never produced a record before and I started out with low expectations for myself, but at some point I realized, ‘I can do this,’” Dobson recalls. “I decided to completely trust my voice and make really bold decisions in all my production calls—just push everything to the absolute outer edges.” 

Interestingly, for Dobson redefining the limits of her artistry goes hand-in-hand with deeper identity issues that came up while Dobson and her bandmates were working on the band’s third album. “I was adopted and just recently met my birth mother, and found out that I’m half-Mexican and half-Jewish,” Deep Sea Diver’s frontperson explains. “Discovering my heritage and learning things about myself that I never knew before really fed into that question of ‘Where do I belong?’” Simultaneously, Dobson rediscovered the sense of possibility, adventure and joy that she first felt when she started out as a 19 year-old.  “I think being signed at such a young age messed me up in terms of the expectations I put on myself,” she says. “Somewhere along the way I lost confidence in my own vision, but after making this record I feel a much larger freedom to go in whatever direction I want with my music.”  

With Impossible Weight, Dobson hopes that others might reclaim a similar sense of freedom in their emotional lives. “Especially right now when the world is in disarray and there’s so much fear, I want this record to give people room to feel whatever they need to feel,” she says. “I hope it helps them recognize that it’s okay to fall apart, and that they’re meant to let others in instead of trying to work through everything on their own. Because the point is that the impossible weight isn’t yours to carry alone—that’s why it’s impossible.”

Impossible Weight’s third and latest single “Lights Out” is a track that’s defiant and anthemic, yet delicate and vulnerable, centered around a slick production, Dobson’s expressive work, thunderous and propulsive rhythm section, enormous, raise-your-beer-in-the-air and shout along worthy hooks and Dobson’s equally expressive vocals alternating between an achingly tender croon and a self-assured defiant growl. And while reminding me a bit of Bad Bad Hats and Nicole Atkins, “Lights Out” features a narrator expresses her needs with a bold and fearless vulnerability. “‘Lights Out’ was written around the time I hit that wall when we first started working on the record; it’s about fumbling through the darkness and knowing I damn well need help getting out,” Dobson explains. 

The recently released lyric video was created by Dobson and features the guitar tablature for the song as the notes are being played. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Swedish-born, Los Angeles-based Pop Artist Winona Oak Releases a Mischievously Twisted Visual for “Control”

Last year, I wrote about the rapidly rising Solleron, Sweden-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist Winona Oak. Oak, who was born Johanna Ekmark has a rather unique backstory: Growing up  on the small, Swedish island known to Swedes as the Island of the Sun, the Solleron-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist spent much of her childhood encountering more animals than people. As the story goes, she grew up as a trained horse acrobat and because she grew up in a musical home, she was encouraged to pursue creative endeavors as much as possible: Ekmark began playing violin when she was 5, piano when she was 9, and she wrote poetry and songs at an extremely young age.

Ekmark eventually moved to Stockholm to pursue a career in music, but a leap of faith that had her attend a Neon Gold Records writing retreat in the Nicaraguan jungle led to her meet Australian-born and based hit making producer and pop artist What So Not. And from this serendipitous meeting, she went on to co-write ““Better” and “Stuck In Orbit,” before stepping out into the spotlight as both the writer and featured artist on the Aussie producer and pop artist’s “Beautiful.”

Adding to a busy 2018, Ekmark covered HAIM‘s “Don’t Save Me” for Neon Gold Records’ 10th anniversary compilation, NGX: Ten Years of Neon Gold before closing out that year with a co-write and vocal contribution to The Chainsmokers viral hit “Hope,” a track that has amassed over 250 million streams across all digital platforms globally — including over 100 million streams on Spotify. As a result of such incredibly early success, the Swedish-born, Los Angeles-based pop artist signed to Warner-Chappell Music Publishing and to Neon Gold/Atlantic Records.

Now, as  you may recall, last year, I wrote about the Swedish-born, Los Angeles-based pop artist’s long-awaited debut single, the slickly produced, hook-driven and sultry “He Don’t Love Me,” and the slow-burning and anthemic ballad “Break My Broken Heart.” Both singles managed to further cement Oak/Ekmark’s growing reputation for crating incredibly earnest pop with enormous hooks. Oak ended last year with the release of an  alternate version of her last single of 2019 “Let Me Know.” The “Let Me Know (Johan Lenox Stings Mix) ” reimagines the propulsive, dance floor friendly original by pairing Oak’s vocals with a string arrangement from Johan Lenox, who has worked with Kanye West, Travis Scott and Vic Mensa. 

Building upon that momentum, Oak released her debut EP CLOSURE through Neon Gold/Atlantic Records last week. The EP’s latest single “Control” continues a run of slickly produced synth pop centered around layers of arpeggiated synths, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, an enormous hook and Oak’s achingly plaintive vocals. And while sonically the song recalls Kylie Minogue and others, the song evokes the swooning and fluttering pangs of new love and the uncertainty, insecurity and obsession it can sometimes bring. “‘Control’ is about meeting someone that makes you weak in your knees and never knowing how they actually feel about you,” Winona Oak explains in press notes. “You make risky decisions, act irrationally and tolerate things you normally wouldn’t. You’re feeling nervous, insecure and are constantly afraid that they are gonna leave you. Oh and this is when you learn – the difference between love and obsession.” 

Shot and co-directed by longtime visual collaborator Andreas Öhman and Julian Gillström, the recently released video for “Control” stars Winona Oak as a desperate and hopelessly obsessed woman who stalks the object of her affection, before trying to build a Ken doll-version of him. “For the video, we wanted to target this hopeless feeling with a twisted sense of humor,”  Oak explains in press notes. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Burna Boy Performs “Anybody” for Vevo CTRL

  With the release of 2013’s Leriq-produced full-length debut L.I.F.E., which featured attention-grabbing singles like  “Like to Party,” “Tonight”, “Always Love You”, “Run My Race” and “Yawa Dey,” Burna Boy, a Nigerian Afro-fusion singer/songwriter, born Damini […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Winona Oak Releases Feverish Visuals for Soaring Ballad “Break My Broken Heart”

Earlier this year, I wrote about the up-and-coming, Solleron, Sweden-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist Winona Oak. And as you may recall, Oak who was born Johanna Ekmark has a rather unique backstory: Growing up  on the small, Swedish island known to Swedes as the Island of the Sun, the up-and-coming Solleron-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist spent much of her childhood encountering more animals than people. As the story goes, she grew up as a trained horse acrobat and because she grew up in a musical home, she was encouraged to pursue creative endeavors as much as possible: Ekmark began playing violin when she was 5, piano when she was 9, and she wrote poetry and songs at an extremely young age. 

Ekmark eventually moved to Stockholm to pursue a career in music, but a leap of faith that had her attend a Neon Gold Records writing retreat in the Nicaraguan jungle led to her to meet Australian-born and based hit making producer and pop artist What So Not. And from this serendipitous meeting, she went on to co-write ““Better” and “Stuck In Orbit,” before stepping out into the spotlight as both the writer and featured artist on the Aussie producer and pop artist’s “Beautiful,” which was released last year.

Adding to a busy 2018, Ekmark covered HAIM‘s “Don’t Save Me” for Neon Gold Records’ 10th anniversary compilation, NGX: Ten Years of Neon Gold. She then closed out the year with a co-write and vocal contribution of The Chainsmokers viral hit “Hope,” a track that has amassed over 250 million streams across all digital platforms globally — including over 100 million streams on Spotify. And as a result of a rapidly growing profile, Oak signed to Warner-Chappell Music Publishing and to Neon Gold/Atlantic Records.

Oak’s long-awaited debut single “He Don’t Love Me” revealed an ambitious songwriter, who has an uncanny knack for a sultry and infectious hook paired with a sleek, hyper modern production and an achingly bittersweet air. Her latest single “Break My Broken Heart” is a slow-burning and anthemic ballad featuring shimmering and arpeggiated synths, Oak’s yearning vocals and a soaring hook. And while the track sonically manages to recall the atmospherics of JOVM mainstay ACES, it’ll also further cement Oak’s reputation for crafting earnest pop with enormous hooks. “You have to be brave to love someone with all of your heart,” Oak says. “But the biggest risk is not to take any risks at all. As long as we’re breathing, what’s one more scar?”

Directed by Andres Ohman, the recently released video for “Break My Broken Heart” continues their ongoing collaboration, it continues a bit in the vein as its predecessor — cinematically shot but while evoking a feverish dream. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sultry and Cinematic Visuals for Winona Oak’s “He Don’t Love Me”

Born Johanna Ekmark, Winona Oak is an up-and-coming Solleron, Sweden-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist. Oak has had one of the most unique backstories I’ve come across in some time. Growing up on the small Swedish island known as the Island of the Sun, the Solleron-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist grew up encountering more animals than people; in fact she grew up as a trained horse acrobat — and because she grew up in a musical home, she was encouraged to pursue creative endeavors as much as possible: she began playing violin when she was 5, piano when she was 9 and she wrote poetry and songs at a very young age.

Ekmark eventually moved to Stockholm to pursue her passion in music; but a leap of faith to attend a Neon Gold Records writing retreat in the Nicaraguan jungle led to her to meet Australian-born and based hit making producer and pop artist What So Not. From this seemingly serendipitous meeting, she went on to co-write “Better” and “Stuck In Orbit,” before stepping out into the spotlight as both the writer and featured artist on the Aussie producer and pop artist’s “Beautiful,” which was released last year.

Adding to a busy 2018, the Solleron-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist covered HAIM’s “Don’t Save Me” for Neon Gold Records’ 10th anniversary compilation, NGX: Ten Years of Neon Gold. She closed out the year with a co-write and vocal contribution to The Chainsmokers viral hit “Hope,” a track that has amassed over 250 million streams across all digital platforms globally — including over 100 million streams on Spotify. And as a result of a rapidly growing profile, Oak signed to Warner-Chappell Music Publishing and to Neon Gold/Atlantic Records.

Oak’s long-awaited debut single “He Don’t Love Me” is centered by sleek, trap meets electro pop production featuring twinkling and arpeggiated synths and keys, stuttering tweeter and woofer rocking beats, and the Solleron-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist’s ethereal yet sultry vocals — and while revealing an ambitious songwriter, who can write a sultry and infectious hook, the song has an achingly bittersweet air. “We’re all capable of falling for people who don’t value us, grasping for a leaving hand. But we must understand that we’re just as capable of realizing that our worth does not lay in those heavy hands,” Oak says of her debut single.

Directed by Andreas Öhman, the sultry and recently released video for “He Don’t Love Me” pairs cinematic black and white footage with brief bursts of animation, the use of prisms, gender-bending doppelgängers to create a visual that’s captivating yet imbued with heartache.