Fanatic is a music marketing company established by Josh Bloom in 1997 to build fan-to-fan connections between artists and the media. For 25 years, Fanatic has continued to help launch careers through the strategic advocacy of creative talent.
Viola’s “My New
Head,” arrives April 9th; Neil Gaiman says, “It’s what pop music
would sound like if it were made by unborn psychedelic ghosts.” +++
Fredo Viola as photographed by Nicholas Kahn +++ Fredo Viola | In The Press “A rich musical palette... A cathedral of sound.” — Le Monde (France) “Quite unlike anything else you will hear... It really
is beautiful.” — The Guardian (UK) “Multi-layered harmonies and rococo melodies.” — UNCUT (UK) “A rich musical palette... A cathedral of sound.” — Le Monde (France) “Cultured and popular, difficult and immediate,
adventurous and comfortable.” — Ondarock
(Italy) +++
“It was a thrill to hear my version of "Senza Di Te" played at the Golden Globe® Awards when Awkwafina won,” exclaims Fredo
Viola, the singer, songwriter, and multi-media artist whose musical contribution to director Lulu Wang’s award-winning film “The Farewell” drew new attention to
his acclaimed catalog
of work earlier this year. “I was so excited for the opportunity to work on the
song, that I recorded a version before even getting hired,”he remembers. “I was thrilled to share it with Lulu, and she thought it was beautiful,
but not exactly what she needed, so she was quite exacting and directed my
vocal performance as if it were an acting performance. ‘More emotion, Fredo, I want you crying!,” she told me. “I was also tasked to set up a studio session with a
bunch of her friends and mine so we could morph the song into an actual karaoke
session. Two hours and two bottles of tequila later, we had the conclusion of
this recording, and very much like the film, it was a sad, joyful, and amazing
experience.” +++ About | Fredo Viola | “In My Mouth”
(Live Cluster Video) Next up for Viola
is his long-awaited new album My New Head, out April 9th, 2021. The album’s
first single “Pine Birds” arrives on
Jan. 15th, and now Viola has offered a sneak preview into song
“In My Mouth”via one of his unique “cluster
videos,” which he records live, presenting some unexpected challenges and surprises. “The piano that rises up in the climax of the song was
wildly difficult to play,” he says. “The final take was the first time, after
an hour of practicing, that I was able to get through it without a mistake. To
be honest, if it weren’t for COVID, I would probably have had professional
pianist play it, but for these experimental live videos, awkwardness can only
add character. “Ultimately, I am quite proud to be using my own, more
primitive playing, and it’s is extremely fun because you only have so much
control, so lots of amazing surprises happen.”
[VIDEO]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K2oYHKcGZQ My
New Head magically manages to
bring listeners so close to Viola’s inner
workings in its mere 35 minutes, and “In
My Mouth” shows him at his most vulnerable. Viola sings, “And now I wanna take a little bit of you in
my mouth. And now I wanna make a dream come over this house. I only started to
take you into my heart. Because of pride my smile is purple orange, and it’s
twisted in place, with barbs and lashes at the edges,stretching open my face.” “These lyrics are perhaps the most vulnerable and
uncomfortably honest I’ve ever written,” hesays. “All of this honesty, vulnerability and nakedness is very new to me.” +++ Fredo Viola My
New Head April 9th, 2021 (Revolutionary
Son)
Track Listing: 01. Demolition 02. Pine Birds 03. Waiting For Seth 04. Clouded Mirror 05. Black Box 06. Kick The Sick 07. Stars and Rainbows 08. Sunset Road 09. In My Mouth (CLUSTER VIDEO) 10. Edwin Vargas 11. My Secret Power +++ Fredo Viola | About Ugly beauty. Euphoric and fabulous. Fredo Viola’s masterpiece My New Head (Revolutionary Son, April 9th,
2021) begins with the old head being pulled apart. The album opens with an introduction of Pavlovian
bells ringing out from a jewelry box of fine cut rocks that represent the
jagged edges of Viola’s mind. Brought
to this renewed having overcome a five-year bout with Lyme disease, the music
is filled with his feelings of gratitude, as well as the trepidation that comes
with having to re-understand existence. “Every bit of social, artistic and cultural framework
that had kept me supported for so many years had come into question and I was
beginning to build again from scratch,” he explains. “You will hear power tools
pulling out old screws, hammering planks out of place; you can feel the
rumbling vibration of a foundation ready to fall apart.” Only “ready.” Viola left the framing to build upon, fashioning and
refurbishing, better than before. A new psychic home or at least the setting
for a renewed life to unfold. The influence of composer Kurt Weill looms lovingly over My New Head. His 1928 music for Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera” meets at a modern intersection with the
theatricality of Kate Bush’s
catalog, and suddenly, we are inside a series of stories, not just an album of
songs. “I was obsessed with his music for years prior to
writing this album,” Viola says of Weill. “All of it. The German works,
the American Theater works. I love the twists and turns, the odd kinks that his
music always has. He always wrote catchy melodic material but is not afraid of
the ugly. Ugly beauty. It’s euphoric and fabulous.” Viola began on the piano as a child and the music on My
New Head emerged from those hands, through the keys, with a stop to
pick up bits of his long-held affection for composers and pianists, Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten. In particular, Britten’s
operatic, orchestral, and chamber pieces haunt My New Head’s darker
moments, and the friendship the two composers shared isn’t lost on Viola, as a component of the theme of
re-birth that runs throughout the album. “There’s that non-frilly, bare-bones intelligence to Shostakovich’s arrangements, especially
in their first forms for voice and piano. Britten
did exactly the same, and I was impressed by the fact that they would mail each
other their song cycle works like pen pals,” Viola says. My New Head
is so densely layered -- even in its quiet moments -- that discussing what we
aren’t hearing becomes as relevant as discussing what we are. “Arrangements by soundtrack composers such as Maurice Jaubert, Maurice Jarre, Alex North
and Ennio Morricone have a very unpretentious
creativity that has inspired me so much,” Viola
says. “These scores are sparkling, surprising and imaginative, yet simple. I
was also inspired by the 70s jazz recordings by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The nakedness of the writing, the directness
and warmth of the recordings... this was a sound I was going for. It’s one of
the reasons why I pared the arrangements down so drastically.” These sparse pieces are the rich soil that Viola describes as being “tended
lovingly with the aim of growing a brand new head between my two shoulders,”
hoping for listeners to “identify with the dense weedy patches, the prickly
overgrowth, the momentous but fleeting discovery of a rare flower, and, beneath
the surface, the ever churning and eternal earth worms.” Ugly beauty. Euphoric and fabulous. My New Head,
the latest eternal and internal work of Fredo
Viola, arrives on April 9th,
2021. +++ Fredo Viola | Links ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : VIMEO : BANDCAMP : SPOTIFY
: APPLE +++ Josh Bloom at Fanatic
Promotion | Contact WEBSITE
: FACEBOOK : TWITTER : YOUTUBE : INSTAGRAM : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL
“Godmuffin,” out today, captures raw artistic impulse
with precision, grace; See
monster movie-themed video “Ordinary Girl” at Under
The Radar. +++
Mike Viola as photographed by Silvia Grav +++ Mike Viola is a Grammy®-nominated
producer, musician, songwriter and singer best known for his work with Panic!
At The Disco, Mandy Moore, Jenny Lewis, Ondara, Matt
Nathanson and Fall Out Boy. His original music has been
featured on soundtracks for movies such as “That Thing You Do!,””Get Him To The Greek,” and “Walk
Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” Viola’s latest album Godmuffin is out now via Good Morning Monkey / Grand Phony. +++ Mike Viola | “Ordinary
Girl”
An obsessive monster movie fan, Violacontinues the series he started
with the video (see
below) for “Drug Rug” (which co-stars
Mandy Moore, and her swimming pool, alongside a hilarious turn as a vampire by Viola
himself) with the video for “Ordinary Girl.”
Track Listing: 01. USA Up All Night 02. Creeper (STREAM) 03. Drug Rug (STREAM | VIDEO | LYRIC VIDEO) 04. We May Never Be This Young Again (LYRIC VIDEO) 05. All You Can Eat 06. The Littles 07. Superkid 2, Trying To Do The Thing I Was Born To
Do 08. Honorable Mention With Jam Show 09. People Pleaser, You’re The Man Of The House Now 10. Ordinary Girl (STREAM
| VIDEO | LYRIC VIDEO) 11. That Seems Impossible Now +++
[VIDEO]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXQokPDo77c [STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/MikeViola-DrugRug +++ “Legend has it that vampires can’t expose themselves
to sunlight, but Mike Viola begs to
differ,” explains
Rolling Stone in its coverage of
Viola’s horror short for his latest
single. “He’s a pool-lazing vampire in the new video for ‘Drug Rug,’ a track off his upcoming LP Godmuffin. Directed by Caitlin Gerard, the video opens with Viola lying on a float in Mandy Moore’s pool. “Viola
channels his preternatural gift for directness and warmth into a celebration of
youth,” BuzzBands.LA says it its premiere
post of the song. Viola explains
that the tune is “a look back at my icy days in NYC. This is an ode to my
beloved classic rock, as well.” +++ Mike Viola | About
Music lives in Mike
Viola. Shit, it’s his last name, right? Godmuffin
(Good Morning Monkey / Grand Phony, Dec. 11th) even opens with strings and man, do they tug. Hard. “Don’t be afraid, no don’t be afraid / We still have
time, we still have time / There’s so much I wanna do” “I wrote ‘Creeper’ the
morning I got the news my close friend died,” Viola says. “He
was my age. Now he can’t make music. I still can. I can still spend my time
looking for the secret cause, the next new song, even when it feels too late,
‘cause I still have time.” Viola’s friend is the artistically immortal, Adam Schlesinger, to whom Viola will forever be publicly tied as
the voice of his friend’s perfect, Oscar®-nominated pop song “That Thing You Do!” At any other time, this association would be a fun
fact. A bullet point in a career full of them. But right now it’s painful to
listen to with Viola’s real-life
tragedy in mind. Somehow, hemakes
it sound beautiful. Godmuffin
follows-up Viola’s 2018 album The
American Egypt, and is his first return in over a decade to the more
conventional rock and pop sound that he first broke through with as front man
of Candy Butchers during that band’s
string of major label records in the late-90s to mid-2000s. Godmuffin
was written and recorded alone in Viola’s
home studio. He describes it as “11 songs about transformation” and Viola isn’t afraid to let you see. “It’s youthful in the chances it takes,” he says. “It
doesn’t give a fuck.” In the face of fine-tuning everything into oblivion, Godmuffin
is the least experimental-sounding experimental record you’ll hear this year. Viola records on half-inch tape and
mixes on a vintage Auditronics console without the advantage of digital
editing. “The
recording is linear, 'cause I can’t punch and fix things very easily,
especially when I’m playing drums. On the computer, you
can repair all of your mistakes ‘til you sound perfect. Or even
worse, tune or beat detective the life out of it. I prefer rock music that’s
beautifully flawed.” “It’s
human,” he says. “Only the dead get to heaven / Here on earth we just
get lost” Human it is. Viola sings the chorus of the album’s first single “Drug Rug,” and it’s as if you’re
listening to recently re-discovered dedications from a high school yearbook. It’s not nostalgia, it’s time traveling written from
the point of view of the graduated Viola,
“who’s spent a lifetime doing windmills on Big
Star guitars, slick with Todd
Rundgren syrup hand-drawn from the tree.” Elsewhere on Godmuffin, Viola sings about being a teenager (“USA Up All Night”), about being the father of teenagers (“The Littles,”“Ordinary Girl”), and even offers up a sequel (“Superkid 2, Trying To Do The Thing I Was Born To Do”) to a
previously released song (“Superkid”)
about being a teenager. Youthful. Not giving a fuck. Is there a time in our lives when we feel more
invincible? Godmuffin is the sound of fearlessness. +++ Mike Viola | Links ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : SPOTIFY : APPLE
: GRAND
PHONY +++ Josh Bloom at Fanatic
Promotion | Contact WEBSITE
: FACEBOOK : TWITTER : YOUTUBE : INSTAGRAM : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL
Euphoric, fabulous, ugly, beautiful; Viola’s
masterpiece My New Head arrives April
9th, 2021. See
live cluster video for “In My Mouth” now. +++
Fredo Viola as photographed by Nicholas Kahn +++ Fredo Viola | In The Press “A rich musical palette... A cathedral of sound.” — Le Monde (France) “Quite unlike anything else you will hear... It really
is beautiful.” — The Guardian (UK) “Multi-layered harmonies and rococo melodies.” — UNCUT (UK) +++
Fredo Viola | “In My Mouth”
(Live Cluster Video) [VIDEO]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K2oYHKcGZQ +++ About | “In My Mouth” My New Head
magically manages to bring listeners so close to Fredo Viola’s inner workings in its mere 35 minutes. “In My Mouth,” one of the album’s
closing pieces, shows us Viola at
his most vulnerable. If there is no trust established by now, it’s Viola who is willing to suffer the
consequences. He sings, “And now I wanna take a little bit of you in
my mouth. And now I wanna make a dream come over this house. I only started to
take you into my heart. Because of pride my smile is purple orange, and it’s
twisted in place, with barbs and lashes at the edges, stretching open my face.” “These lyrics are perhaps the most vulnerable and
uncomfortably honest I’ve ever written,” Viola
says. “All of this honesty, vulnerability and nakedness is very new to me.” +++
Fredo Viola My
New Head April 9th, 2021 (Revolutionary
Son) Track Listing: 01. Demolition 02. Pine Birds 03. Waiting For Seth 04. Clouded Mirror 05. Black Box 06. Kick The Sick 07. Stars and Rainbows 08. Sunset Road 09. In My Mouth (CLUSTER VIDEO) 10. Edwin Vargas 11. My Secret Power
+++ Fredo Viola | About
Ugly beauty. Euphoric and fabulous. Fredo Viola’s masterpiece My New Head (Revolutionary Son, April 9th,
2021) begins with the old head being pulled apart. The album opens with an introduction of Pavlovian
bells ringing out from a jewelry box of fine cut rocks that represent the
jagged edges of Viola’s mind. Brought
to this renewed having overcome a five-year bout with Lyme disease, the music
is filled with his feelings of gratitude, as well as the trepidation that comes
with having to re-understand existence. “Every bit of social, artistic and cultural framework
that had kept me supported for so many years had come into question and I was
beginning to build again from scratch,” he explains. “You will hear power tools
pulling out old screws, hammering planks out of place; you can feel the
rumbling vibration of a foundation ready to fall apart.” Only “ready.” Viola left the framing to build upon, fashioning and
refurbishing, better than before. A new psychic home or at least the setting
for a renewed life to unfold. The influence of composer Kurt Weill looms lovingly over My New Head. His 1928 music for Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera” meets at a modern intersection with the
theatricality of Kate Bush’s catalog,
and suddenly, we are inside a series of stories, not just an album of songs. “I was obsessed with his music for years prior to
writing this album,” Viola says of Weill. “All of it. The German works,
the American Theater works. I love the twists and turns, the odd kinks that his
music always has. He always wrote catchy melodic material but is not afraid of
the ugly. Ugly beauty. It’s euphoric and fabulous.” Viola began on the piano as a child and the music on My
New Head emerged from those hands, through the keys, with a stop to
pick up bits of his long-held affection for composers and pianists, Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten. In particular, Britten’s
operatic, orchestral, and chamber pieces haunt My New Head’s darker
moments, and the friendship the two composers shared isn’t lost on Viola, as a component of the theme of
re-birth that runs throughout the album. “There’s that non-frilly, bare-bones intelligence to Shostakovich’s arrangements, especially
in their first forms for voice and piano. Britten
did exactly the same, and I was impressed by the fact that they would mail each
other their song cycle works like pen pals,” Viola says. My New Head
is so densely layered -- even in its quiet moments -- that discussing what we
aren’t hearing becomes as relevant as discussing what we are. “Arrangements by soundtrack composers such as Maurice Jaubert, Maurice Jarre, Alex North
and Ennio Morricone have a very unpretentious
creativity that has inspired me so much,” Viola
says. “These scores are sparkling, surprising and imaginative, yet simple. I
was also inspired by the 70s jazz recordings by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The nakedness of the writing, the directness
and warmth of the recordings... this was a sound I was going for. It’s one of
the reasons why I pared the arrangements down so drastically.” These sparse pieces are the rich soil that Viola describes as being “tended
lovingly with the aim of growing a brand new head between my two shoulders,”
hoping for listeners to “identify with the dense weedy patches, the prickly
overgrowth, the momentous but fleeting discovery of a rare flower, and, beneath
the surface, the ever churning and eternal earth worms.” Ugly beauty. Euphoric and fabulous. My New Head,
the latest eternal and internal work of Fredo
Viola, arrives on April 9th,
2021. +++ Fredo Viola | Links ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : VIMEO : BANDCAMP : SPOTIFY
: APPLE +++ Josh Bloom at Fanatic
Promotion | Contact WEBSITE
: FACEBOOK : TWITTER : YOUTUBE : INSTAGRAM : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL
“A stirring and intimate introduction to her artistry,”
says Under The Radar in its premiere coverage of haunting single “World To
Save,” out now. +++
Kim Conlee of frigidkitty. Photo credit: Self-Portrait +++ frigidkitty | “World To
Save”
[STREAM]:
https://Fanatic.lnk.to/frigidkitty-WorldToSave +++ About | “World To Save” “Taking on the witchy vibe of Stevie Nicks, the art pop of Kate
Bush, and the fractured psychedelic folk of Mazzy Star, Conlee
constructs her own world on Indulgence,” says Under
The Radar in its premiere coverage of Kim Conlee aka frigidkitty’s
new single “World To Save,” going on
to call it, “a stirring and intimate introduction to her artistry.” When the artist describes her own work,
she also mentions “paranoid” trip-hop grooves, and a “sour minor-key
psychedelic whorl.” About “World To
Save,”Conlee says the song “reflects
upon the pain and disappointment of a failed friendship.Life changes, people move, convictions are
compromised, miscommunication abounds! Can a long-distance friendship endure
through all of it? Is anyone to blame if it doesn’t? Distance makes the heart
grow fonder, but does it make relationships stronger?” +++ frigidkitty Indulgence Dec. 18th, 2020 (Desperate
Spirits)
Track Listing: 01. Introduction 02. Convictions 03. Just The Same 04. World To Save (STREAM) 05. Show Your Face 06. Home 07. Look In Your Eye 08. Hooks 09. Gasoline +++ frigidkitty | About
Following a 40-second introduction that feels like
you’re entering an upside-down Disney netherworld, Lexington, Kentucky’s Kim Conlee bares claws. To scratch an itch? To draw blood? The answer depends on the listener, because Conlee is the kind of sonic seducer
that leaves you wondering if you are the victimizer or the victim. Conlee’s vocals envelop like one of Stevie
Nicks’ shawls, and while she is accompanied by a slew of talented friends
throughout Indulgence, it is her own personal backing band of one (playing
piano, guitar, flute, synthesizer, and other assorted electronics) that keep
these songs in a personal space that feels intentional. To hold you down? To lift you up? Keep listening to find out. Listen again to reactivate
doubt. Indulgence, fifteen years in the making, is the debut album from
frigidkitty. Look for it on Dec. 18th, 2020 from the Desperate Spirits label, preceded by
the single “World To Save,”out now. +++ frigidkitty | Links ASSETS : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : TWITTER
: DESPERATE SPIRITS +++ Josh Bloom at Fanatic
Promotion | Contact WEBSITE
: FACEBOOK : TWITTER : YOUTUBE : INSTAGRAM : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL
