THE SLOW MUSIC MOVEMENT​
  • Home
  • Music Tips
  • Radio/Playlists
  • Record Label/Licensing
  • Blog
  • Sound Advice
  • About
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Music Tips
  • Radio/Playlists
  • Record Label/Licensing
  • Blog
  • Sound Advice
  • About
  • Contact
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

Picture

The Slow Music Movement Blog

​Mostly we put our daily recommendations here for the blog readers among you, although occasionally we go longform.
Reading about music is a bit like looking at pictures of food - not nearly half as much fun as getting involved, so we scribble a brief intro to hopefully whet your appetite but you're better off just hitting play. Not very "slow" I know but there's a lot of music to check these days & hopefully you'll find the recommendations a handy filter.
​Trust your ears, not opinions.

24/8/2019 0 Comments

Sunny War - Shell of a Girl (Hen House Studios)

Picture
WHAT WE SAY:

It's great to see Sunny War back with a new LP as she takes a philosophical look back at her rocky road via varied strains of Americana all united by her fine, self taught, guitar playing & distinctive soulful folk vocals for Hen House Studios.

WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

WHAT THE PRESS RELEASE SAYS:

Released on the heels of her critically acclaimed 2018 album, With the Sun, Sunny War’s new album finds her a little bit older, a little bit more mature, but looking back on the rocky roads of her past with a surprising amount of nostalgia. Shell of a Girl, coming August 23, 2019 on Hen House Studios with vinyl released by Org Music, was written in a burst of creativity in Los Angeles, and marks a new transition period, with Sunny moving from the Venice Beach boardwalk, where she first made her name, to the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Holed up in a studio apartment in an old halfway house that’s rumored to be haunted, Sunny muses “I think I’ve heard ghosts, but I’ve always heard ghosts everywhere.” These ghosts are reflected in the songs on the new album, either through the ghosts of friends who’ve passed away, from overdose or accident, or in the ghosts of who she used to be. “I feel like I’ve tricked myself into trying to be a part of the system that I swore I’d never participate in,” she says. “Now I’m worried about moving from a studio to a one-bedroom. It bums me out when the thing I’m happy about is paying the light bill. I’m never happy about something that’s real anymore.”

Growing up in Los Angeles’ punk scene, Sunny was hopping trains from a tender age, riding free on the rails and living homeless on the streets. Her music has always been raw, and she refuses to shy away from a brutally open honesty about the rougher parts of her life, but now that she’s gotten a modicum of comfort and routine, she finds herself looking back to what she remembers as the happiest time in her life. Far from her early days playing house shows with members of FIDLAR, and racing through punk sets with her band Anus Kings, Sunny insists she’s never lost touch with her punk roots, in fact she feels more punk than ever; “I’ve graduated to just hating everybody,” she says with a laugh.

Sunny War jokes that the songs on Shell of a Girl come from her attempts to write a radio-friendly single, inspired by wildly varied influences like commercial jingles that fascinated her as a kid, the cross rhythms of bossa nova guitar, even a peculiarly twisted version of circus classic “March of the Gladiators.” Recording again at Hen House Studios on Venice Beach with producer Harlan Steinberger and her musical collaborators Micah Nelson (Particle Kid) Aroyn Davis, Milo Gonzalez, Tato Melgar, Lesterfari Simbarashe, and Edith Crash rounding out the cast, Sunny moves freely between musical genres, anchored by her virtuosic, self-taught fingerstyle guitar work. Playing on a temperamental Guild acoustic guitar, that she’s named Big Baby for its tendency to squall and feedback, Sunny’s guitar work is as dazzling as ever, notes cascading out of the guitar in Art Tatum-ish flourishes.

Her songs cut deeply too, confessional at times, wounded at other times, and fiercely proud throughout. As Sunny explains the title song, “Shell,” “in relationships, people just treat somebody like shit. Then that person changes and they don’t recognize them anymore. If you keep attacking me, I’m going to morph into somebody who’s more defensive and more aggressive, so why are you surprised?” “Drugs Are Bad” attempts to reconcile Sunny’s own medicated childhood and our culture of medicating children with self-righteous parents who think that the only drug addicts are those that use street drugs. “Soul Tramp” speaks to the hobo’s urge to keep moving, to avoid routine, to keep from ever being bored. “A ‘soul tramp’ is somebody who constantly feels like they need to go somewhere all the time,” she explains. “You’re just fighting that feeling. The lyrics are inspired by train hopping. When I hopped trains, I was living off of food stamps and just drinking Night Train. Looking back now, I think that those were the happiest times of my life. Everything was so random. Something new was happening every day, it was always interesting.”

Moving further into adulthood, Sunny War feels herself pulled back to the wild days of her youth, to the adventure and freedom we all remember, though rarely with the intensity that she lived it. But that freedom came with a price. “Most of my travelling friends died from ODing or liver failure,” she admits. “The drinking was a really big part of it, but also heroin. Almost everybody I know is dead. Then I think, why did I gravitate towards these kinds of people and then I think, was I supposed to be dead?” It’s a question she asks explicitly on “Rock n Roll Heaven”, reflecting that “I wasn’t really planning to live past 27, so now I’m like, OK what happens? I feel like that old gag where two kids are standing on each other’s shoulders with a trench coat on, pretending to be an adult. I kept wondering if I’m the only one pretending or…?” Of course, she’s not the only one pretending, but few other artists ask such honest questions with such an earnest curiosity.
 

released August 23, 2019

Credits:
Sunny War: acoustic guitar, bass, vocals
Milo Gonzalez: electric guitar
Tato Melgar: percussion
Harlan Steinberger: tambourine
Produced by Harlan Steinberger
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    OUR MISSION STATEMENT GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS

    Lazy Days, Hazy Moments & Dancing to a Slower Groove

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    April 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Lazy Days, Hazy Moments & Dancing To a Slower Groove