Tag: Kelly Finnigan From Me To You Mixtape

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Kelly Finnigan Shares Strutting “Be Your Own Shelter”

Perhaps best known as the frontman of the acclaimed West Coast psych soul outfit and JOVM mainstays Monophonics, Kelly Finnigan is an acclaimed producer, keyboardist and solo artist in his own right. 

Finnigan’s highly-anticipated sophomore studio album A Lover Was Born is slated for an October 18, 2024 release through Colemine Records. Distance as a measure of time and place reportedly informs the album with a grit and grace that turns passion into virtue. The album also sees the Monophonics frontman rooting himself — and in turn, his work — in the best traditions of midwest soul labels like King, Curtom, Dakar and the Boddie Recording Company. And as a result, A Lover Was Born is a testimony that those deep cut grooves aren’t resigned to nostalgia, but rather, they are at the burning heart of longing and hope. 

The journey that Finnigan takes listeners on through Lover‘s 11 tracks echo the state of motion and growth since his solo debut, 2019’s The Tales People Tell. Both solo albums bookend a prolific period of output that includes two Monophonics albums, 2020’s It’s Only Us and 2022’s Sage Motel; a Christmas album, 2020’s A Joyful Sound; a mixtape, last year’s From Me To You; and production work for other artists including The Ironsides, Alana Royale, The Sextones and others. “There’s nothing like making records,” says Finnigan. “It feels like that’s my purpose — the reason I was put on this earth.” 

Written in California, Ohio and Staten Island, Finnigan collaborated with old friends in and outside the studio. “I enjoy working alone but it’s not how you want to make a record…almost everybody I brought in for this album I’ve worked with, toured with or spent a great deal of time with. The album features contributions from The Ironsides’ Max and Joe Ramey, Parlor Greens‘ Jimmy James, Orgōne’s Sergio Rios, Dap Kings‘ Joey Crispiano and Jay “J-Zone” Mumford. 

Last month, I wrote about “Love (Your Pain Goes Deep),” a song anchored around a hard-hitting, strutting groove that sounds as though it could have been written and recorded between 1966-1970, paired with twinkling Rhodes, a supple bass line, shimmering funk guitar, bursts of cinematic strings and a lush horn line. The song’s deliberately crafted arrangement serves as a satiny bed for Finnigan’s pleading and effortlessly soulful delivery. At its core, you can feel the yearning, hurt and longing of the song’s narrator in very lived-in terms. 

A Lover Was Born‘s latest single “Be Your Own Shelter,” features a strutting and stomping piano-driven groove reminiscent of early Staxx Records, early Motown and Northern Soul and a soulful backing chorus paired with Finnigan’s imitable delivery. Continuing a remarkable run of effortless yet crafted soul, “Be Your Own Shelter” is anchored around a necessary message, that when the shit inevitably hits the fan, that you will need to be your own shelter.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Monophonics’ Kelly Finnigan Shares a Crafted Soul Ballad

Kelly Finnigan is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, keyboardist, producer and owner of  San Rafael, CA-based Transistor Sound Studio. While Finnigan is perhaps best known as the frontman of the equally acclaimed West Coast-based soul outfit and JOVM mainstays Monophonics, he is also a highly-regarded solo artist, who has released two albums — 2019’s full-length debut The Tales People Tell and 2020’s Christmas album,  A Joyful Sound. 

Monophonics third album, 2020’s It’s Only Us, which featured “Chances,” and “It’s Only Us” received praise from the likes of Billboard, Flood, Cool Hunting and American Songwriter, while selling 10,000 physical copies and amassing over 20 million streams across the various digital streaming platforms. Thematically, It’s Only Us touched upon unity in a fractious and divisive world, strength, resilience, acceptance — and of course, love.

The acclaimed JOVM mainstays fourth album, last year’s Sage Motel derived its title from an actual place — the Sage Motel. What started out as a quaint motor lodge and common pitstop for travelers and truckers in the 1940s, Sage Motel morphed into a bohemian’ hang out by the 1960s and 1970s: Artists, musicians and vagabonds of all stripes would stop there as seedy ownership pumped obnoxious amounts of money into high-end renovations, eventually attracting some of the most prominent acts of the era. But when the money ran out, the motel devolved into a hot sheet hotel. 

If the hotel’s walls could talk, they’d tell you tales of human highs and lows, of a place where big dreams and broken hearts live, and where people find themselves at a crossroads — sometimes without quite knowing how they got there.

Thematically, Sage Motel tackled all of those subjects while seeing the band further cementing their reputation as one of the world’s premier psychedelic soul bands. 

Finnigan’s new mixtape From Me To You is a collection of 16 songs that will be released exclusively on cassette tomorrow through Colemine Records. It’s an extremely limited release that won’t be available on vinyl, CD or digital streaming for some time. “I want to share what I’ve been working on. It’s not a proper album, and it doesn’t have the same vibe all throughout,” Finnigan says of the mixtape. “It’s a collection of different ideas, which is how I used to share the music I loved with my friends.”

“Owning a physical copy of a song and using a specific piece of equipment to hear it – that was a huge part of my musical upbringing,” the acclaimed singer/songwriter, musician and producer says of the cassette-only format of the mixtape. “This is a selection of different songs on a tape. It’s how I want people to experience it. (The cassette has just sold out online, but it’ll be available at local retail shops across the country on release day.)

From Me To You‘s lead single “Leave You Alone” was written and recorded back in 2019 during The Tales People Tell sessions and was recorded at Finnigan’s Transistor Sound. The track features Monophonics’ and The Ironsides‘ Max Ramey (bass) and Joe Ramey (sax) — and features Finnigan playing all other instrumentation on the track. Sonically, “Leave You Alone” is a classic R&B-meets-soul jam rooted in Finnigan’s uncanny knack for pairing old-school craftsmanship with earnest, seemingly lived-in lyricism.

Inspired by Bettye Swann, “Leave You Alone” is a love song told from the perspective of a jilted woman, who recognized that it’s long been time for her to move away and on from a faithless, no-good lover. It may arguably be among the most seemingly lived-in songs of Finnigan’s career, while capturing its central character with an uncannily precise attention to psychological detail.