Drew Citron is a singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and music venue owner who’s been a New York indie scene mainstay. She can trace the origins of her professional career to being a touring member of Frankie Rose’s backing band and with The Pains of Being Pure of Heart. Along with Class Actress’ Scott Rosenthal, she formed acclaimed act Beverly and opened Bushwick, Brooklyn-based music venue Alphaville.
Citron’s solo debut Free Now is slated for an October 9, 2020 release through Park The Van — and the album reportedly finds Citron rediscovering herself as an artist, following the break up of her longtime relationship with her bandmate and business partner Scott Rosenthal. And as a result the album’ material is a roadmap to the evolution of a performer taking complete ownership of her craft and work in every element of the creative process with Citron engineering, producing and playing most of the instruments on an album that finds her collaborating with Rosenthal, Sam Owens (a.k.a Sam Evian), Ash’s Tim Wheeler, Danny Taylor and John Agnello.
Free Now’s first single is the slow-burning “Summertime.” Featuring a gorgeous and atmospheric arrangement featuring shimmering guitars, a soaring string arrangement, shuffling drumming and Citron’s achingly plaintive vocals, the track manages to sound both anachronistic and cinematic — while being centered around earnest yet ambitious songwriting. Sonically, the track reminds me a bit of Amber Arcade’s Cannonball EP– specifically “Wouldn’t Even Know” — but at its core its a sweet and much-needed hopeful song about new love with the wistful ache of knowing that too will fade. “A nostalgic song about summer feels more prescient than ever,” Citron explains. “Missing summer, loving it, living for late afternoon beach beers, god I’m missing summer already and it’s barely started. This is a sweet little song about new love in summer, not wanting it to end, wanting to hold on to that feeling.”
The recently released video for “Summertime” is a cinematically shot and deceptively mischievous homage to King of New York that has a wistfully nostalgic ache for all of the things we can’t quite have right now as a result of pandemic-related shutdowns.
