Lighten Up Erin Rae

• 1 Candy & Curry 03:33
• 2 Can't See Stars (feat. Kevin Morby) 03:36
• 3 True Love's Face 03:20
• 4 Gonna Be Strange 03:19
• 5 California Belongs to You 03:37
• 6 Cosmic Sigh 03:40
• 7 Modern Woman 03:24
• 8 Drift Away 03:40
• 9 Enemy 03:42
• 10 Mind/Heart 03:51
• 11 Lighten Up & Try 03:06
• 12 Undone 02:46
• Total Runtime 41:34

Info for Lighten Up

Erin Raes zweites Album „Lighten Up“, produziert von Jonathan Wilson, ist eine zeitlose Mischung aus klassischem Pop, kosmischem Country und Indie-Rock. Rae debütierte das Video zu ihrer ersten offiziellen Single aus dem Album „Modern Woman“ beim Rolling Stone. Ein temporeicher Indie-Folk-Rock-Bop, der die Weiblichkeit in all ihren Facetten feiert.

Das Video zeigt Musiker wie Brittany Howard und verschiedene aufstrebende Kreative und Geschäftsinhaber aus Nashville aus der ganzen Community, darunter die Fotografen Emerson Kyle und Curry, Direktor der Nashville Black Beauty School und Black Trans-Befürworter. Als Rae den Song mit dem Rolling Stone besprach, sagte sie, dass "Modern Woman" von Anfang an ein wenig frech sein soll, von mir, einer weißen Frau, die sich auch als Frau präsentiert, aber es entstand eines Tages in der Küche während der Pandemie.

Es war so unglaublich kraftvoll, die Diskussion und Entwicklung von Geschlechternormen durch meine Kollegen und Freunde mitzuerleben, sowie die Darstellung aller Körper, die immer mehr in die Mainstream-Medien eindrangen. Das Lied ist im Grunde eine Ansage an eine figurative Person, die sich unwohl fühlt mit der Auflösung einer müden Definition dessen, was es bedeutet, eine Frau zu sein.

"Rae states this clearly. She sings, “The mind is fucked / But the heart is pure” on “Mind/Heart”. Compassion and empathy make us better people. Overthinking can make everything worse. That doesn’t mean one has to be stupid to be happy. One has to think feelingly. That’s analogous to the Zen-like instruction of the title song, which asks us to try harder by not trying (or lightening up). One has to live with the dualities that comprise life with other people and the larger world and accept that we are all part of the same reality. The world is one. Once we discover that, we can find ourselves and like Rae, make our own music." (Steve Horowitz, popmatters.com)

Erin Rae

Erin Rae
Gifted with a unique ability to fuse musical genres and influences to craft songs that feel fresh and wholly her own, with her new album Putting On Airs, Erin Rae has thrown down a direct challenge to the stereotype of what a Southern singer should be. Both lyrically and sonically, she strikes a fiercely independent chord, proudly releasing a deeply personal record that reflects her own upbringing in Tennessee, including the prejudices and injustices that she witnessed as a child that continue to impact her life to this day. According to Rae, "this album was born out of a need to do some healing work in my personal life, in order to address some fears and patterns of mine to allow my true feelings to come to the surface."

Buoying the release is Rae’s reputation as an enthralling live performer, which has earned her the respect of Nashville peers and music notables alike, including Grammy Award winner John Paul White, who has signed her to his Florence, Alabama-based label, Single Lock Records. Rae joins a Single Lock roster that includes Nicole Atkins, St. Paul And The Broken Bones, and White himself, who said “When I first heard Erin’s compelling voice, I knew nothing about her. It was live, with no intro (she was opening for friends of mine), and I was instantly transfixed. I couldn’t wait to engage, and that’s something I very seldom feel, much less do. I was thrilled to find out her personality was as engaging as her voice and songs, and that she was looking for a home. I couldn’t be happier to be hitching our wagons together.”

Recorded in the dead of winter at The Refuge, a historic former Franciscan monastery-turned-creative space on Wisconsin’s Fox River, the isolated environment created the perfect setting for Erin and her bandmates to track these genre-busting songs, using the chapel and other unique spaces within the cavernous building to explore new sonic boundaries, all while continuing to showcase Erin’s trademark vocals and song-serving restraint first heard on her critically-acclaimed 2015 debut album, Soon Enough.

The unique sound of the record is inspired by the innovative 1960s European production techniques from artists like the Beatles and Francoise Hardy, paired alongside the restraint and minimalism of modern artists like Wilco and Richard Hawley, bridging the sonic gap between classic songwriting and a modern indie-rock ethos. The album was co-produced by engineer Dan Knobler (Rodney Crowell, Tift Merritt) and multi-instrumentalist Jerry Bernhardt. Dominic Billett also served an integral role in the collective that worked together to create the album’s innovative and varied sonic pallet, providing the perfect soundscape for Erin’s soothing vocals, bathing everything in the warmth and purity that has become her trademark sound.

This album contains no booklet.