Lauren Monroe - Bel-la - Hohnen Ford - Brooke Annibale
Lauren Monroe - singer, songwriter, and healing artist - announces a September tour in support of Messages from Aphrodite with the premiere of a new video, “Sparrow.” This is the latest offering from the upcoming album, due out September 9th, which Monroe co-produced with the legendary Jim Scott.
Monroe, a New York-born, California-based polymath, conducts parallel careers as a gifted singer-songwriter and a renowned mental-health advocate. She approaches these intertwined roles with equal passion, her nuanced understanding of human behavior informing her music, which she sees as “a heart-based experience” that is “not just about listening—it’s about feeling and connecting.” She draws on her deep well of accrued knowledge in her songs, which she delivers in a luminous alto that resonates with empathy. Her experiential lyrics, emotionally authentic and free of pretense, are embedded in vibrant folk-rock settings, immediate in their impact and timeless in their sound.
Music and healing have always been focal points in Monroe’s life. Earlier this year, she was joined by her husband, the legendary drummer Rick Allen of Def Leppard, for a run of intimate East Coast club dates during which they also displayed their mixed-media art. The pieces were then auctioned online to benefit Raven Drum Foundation, an organization they founded with the mission to serve, educate and empower veterans dealing with PTSD and combat trauma, people in crisis, and other at-risk individuals.
And in 2021, she staged the first Big Love Benefit Concert, which featured performances by Billy Idol, Wynonna Judd, and the Allman Betts Band, among others. Proceeds from the event, which brought financial and mental health support to music-industry professionals affected by the pandemic, were donated to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. “Being of service is a way of helping yourself as well,” she reflects. “And the healing power of music is profound. Everything I do is part of a journey of healing.”
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Los Angeles-based Artist Bel-la showcases her original brand of ethereal indie rock on the powerful new single with a universal theme of loss - "Nothing's Gonna Get You Back", out now via Dime Dash's BLUROC Records. Bel-la's vocals are captivating and almost dream-like, even when singing about heartbreak or sadness, and the music is appropriately atmospheric and driving. The results is both understated and profound.
Based on her artistic approach, it's no surprise that Bel-la finds much of her inspiration and songwriting ideas in dreams. Whether someone close to you has passed away or you've experienced the loss of a serious relationship, the music and lyrics should relate to nearly everyone. Musically, this darker shade of Indie Rock should appeal to fans of Wolf Alice, Lana Del Rey, St. Vincent and Hope Sandoval.
"The inspiration for this song was really the sentiment of loss in general, loved ones passing, relationships ending etc and how even though these things are no longer in a physical form they still exist so strongly all around us and in our memories, and the fabric of our vast lives."
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| Photo by Harvey Pearson |
Hohnen Ford has just released her debut single "Infinity" via Young Poet (Conor Albert, WOOZE, Carmody). Hohnen Ford is the solo project of singer-songwriter Ella Hohnen-Ford who counts the likes of Joni Mitchell, Bjork, Big Thief, Fiona Apple and Sarah Vaughan as inspirations. Prior to the release of any music, Hohnen Ford found a corner of the internet in which to really express herself on Reddit, where she regularly commands the attention of up to one million viewers on her live streams, with the associated Kudos to reflect such viewership. Hohnen Ford has recently taken her live experience “offline” and has sold out venues including Vortex and St Pancras Old Church in London.
Debut single "Infinity" was written and produced by Hohnen Ford and mixed by Tom Carmichael (Matt Maltese, Porridge Radio, Wu-Lu). The song is a delectably sparse treatise on serenity, written at a make or break moment in her life where Hohnen Ford was searching within herself for answers and a breakthrough in her own self-discovery; in her lyrics she muses on the loneliness of youth as she embarks on her exploration: "I haven't found it yet / maybe I never will but I'll tretcher on / It's a lifetime skill".
Speaking more on the lyrical inspiration of the new single, Hohnen Ford described "Infinity" as: "A stream of consciousness in a quiet moment when the world felt overwhelming. A note to myself as I was reflecting on what was bubbling around in my brain at a time of crossroads in my life."
Hohnen Ford is a native of North London, by way of a brief stay in San Francisco where a next-door neighbour (who shared her house with a chatter of Parakeets) introduced her to her first instrument, the flute. From that colourful introduction, music seeped into Hohnen Ford’s world from almost every familial angle. A baptism into the world of Northern Soul came via her father; her mother flooded the house with classical piano pieces and the family has leaned into music’s healing qualities by reciting a grandfather’s favoured jazz repertoire to help him find calm in the stormy waters of dementia.
Hohnen Ford’s path almost inevitably led to the doors of The Royal Academy of music where she studied “Jazz Voice” (one of the few young women to do so). A self-confessed explorer, Hohnen Ford’s ambition is to “fill rooms around the world with people who want to be there, making them really feel something so they get lost in the music”.
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Indie singer/songwriter Brooke Annibale announced today her new album Better By Now will release on September 30th through Nettwerk Music Group. A fearless new collection of songs, Brooke has both emboldened her sound on Better By Now as well as entered a new phase of life after making significant strides in her mental-health journey and saying “I do” to her wife. She also shared today the title track and official video for “Better By Now,” a stark reflection that merges personal emotions with the roller coaster of current events.
“I wrote this song in early January 2021,” stated Brooke. “We had literally just put the christmas tree out on the curb, and I felt this terrible sentimental feeling for it. This was also the same week as the Capitol attack. We had pushed through 2020, looking at 2021 as some kind of savior, but once it arrived nothing really changed. There was still the same intensely hostile political discourse and the pandemic continued raging on. It felt like things were getting worse somehow, when I hoped for it to be better by now. Reflecting on that time, it taught me that expecting a perfect external outcome will not lead to feeling better. I’ve got to do the internal work to have any kind of peace with the roller coaster of life.”
Produced by Christian “Leggy” Langdon (Joseph, Amos Lee) and Matthew E White (Natalie Prass, Dan Croll), Better By Now features 10 blossoming indie-pop tracks that Brooke describes as a “spectrum of emotions.” In her trademark layered approach, the Pittsburgh-born, Rhode Island-based artist reflects on love, anxiety, depression, and how two seemingly opposing forces can exist at once. “The album is basically half about falling in love and half about mental health.”
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