Inara George of The Bird and The Bee: “I was just blown away by his interpretations of our songs.” “Dev Marvelous X The Bird and The Bee” out now.

When Marvelous came to George with his versions, she decided to release them herself! LGBTQ producer tells how his “Birthday” cover connects to Pride.
 
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Dev Marvelous as photographed by Emmaline

 

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Road Angel Project Presents: Dev Marvelous X The Bird and The Bee | “La La La”
 

Listen to the Dev Marvelous version of “La La La” by The Bird and The Bee via WFPK, Cover Me, Atwood Magazine or the link below!
 
“My favorite part of covering ‘La La La’ was recording the background harmonies and the new keyboard solo during the breakdown,” says Dev Marvelous of his impressive version of this original by The Bird and The Bee.
 
“Background vocals are usually daunting for me when I record, but I think due to the song's fun nature, it turned into a fast but joyful experience. For the keyboard solo, I knew when I started there would be a funky, dissonant breakdown where I just go crazy on synthesizer. It was fun to re-record Greg Kurstin’s solo too!”
 
[STREAM]:  https://fanatic.lnk.to/DevMarvelous-LaLaLa
 
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“It is always so incredibly flattering to have someone play or record a cover of a song I wrote, no matter what.” – Inara George of The Bird and The Bee
 
When Louisville, Kentucky-based producer, singer-songwriter, and pianist, Devon Moore aka Dev Marvelous, sent her an album’s worth of reinterpretations of The Bird and The Bee songs, George immediately asked if she could put them out.
 
Road Angel Project Presents: Dev Marvelous X The Bird and The Bee is out now as the sixth volume in George’s ongoing charity series in partnership with, and benefitting, the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund’s COVID-19 fund.
 
“I was just blown away by his interpretations of our songs,” George says. “Dev really made them his own, and it seemed obvious to me that he was a serious musician with his own unique vision.”
 
“It’s always been a dream of mine to collaborate with Inara,” Moore continues. “Her voice and tone, paired with her clever, poetic lyrical ability are unmatched.”
 
Among The Bird and The Bee’s many original songs, the duo has become known for their “Interpreting The Masters” albums, in which they do exactly that, covering a full album’s worth of tunes by their heroes. First was Daryl Hall & John Oates, which was followed by a Van Halen edition in 2019.
 
In all its meta glory, the gracious appreciation that Moore’s album shows for The Bird and The Bee’s tunes is clear.
 
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“Being a Black, gay musician, I always look to incorporate my unique queer voice into a lot of my work.” – Dev Marvelous
 
In addition to paying tribute to artists that inspire him, Marvelous’ stated goal through the creation of his original music and visual art is to unite and brighten the world around us, “no matter your skin, orientation, or music library.”
 
He says, “Being a Black, gay musician, I always look to incorporate my unique queer voice into a lot of my work. Similarly, I am very in touch with my spirituality. It’s important to me, and I always include a spiritual, faith-based piece in as much of my original music as I can.

  
Marvelous’ version of The Bird and The Bee song “Birthday” has a direct relation to Pride for him.
 
[STREAM]: https://fanatic.lnk.to/DevMarvelous-Birthday
 
Marvelous explains, “I made the ‘Birthday’ cover imagining I was singing it to my dream boyfriend or husband as a gift when we’re apart. In some ways, it’s almost like an offering to my future partner in real time. We don’t know each other yet, but our higher selves do, and when we come together in reality, I imagine the very feelings that Inara writes about in that song will apply to us, no matter if we're together or apart.”
 
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Road Angel Project Presents:
“Dev Marvelous X The Bird and The Bee”
Out Now
(Release Me Records)
 
Streaming Link:
STREAM FULL EP
  

Track Listing:
 
01. Polite Dance Song (The Bird and The Bee)
02. What’s In The Middle (The Bird and The Bee)
03. La La La (The Bird and The Bee) (STREAM)
04. Gamera (Greg Kurstin)
05. Take Me To Paris (Inara George)
06. Lovey Dovey (The Bird and The Bee)
07. Birthday (The Bird and The Bee) (STREAM)
 
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About | Road Angel Project
 

Click to listen to a playlist of all six volumes of the “Road Angel Project” here
 
“I reached out to some of my musician friends to see if anyone had a track that they’d like to donate to the cause,” Inara George says. “As the pandemic hit and it became very clear that live music would not resume for many, many months, I immediately thought of Sweet Relief, not only because they help so many musicians, but also because they help everyone in the music industry.
 
“All of those people who work at venues booking shows, stage managing, bartending, lighting, mixing sound, and on and on... Sweet Relief is set up to help all of these workers during this crisis and also any other crisis that might come.”
 
Sweet Relief’s Aric Steinberg says, “Sweet Relief is so grateful to be a part of the ‘Road Angel Project.’ It’s been incredible to see the music community come together during this pandemic, and this is another example of good people doing good things. The funds raised will allow us to help even more music industry professionals in desperate need and we are truly thankful for Inara’s support.”
 
For more information about the Sweet Relief COVID-19 Relief Fund, visit: https://www.sweetrelief.org/covid-19-fund.html
 
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Road Angel Project | Inara George | Dev Marvelous | Links
 
ASSETS : WEBSITE (INARA) : FACEBOOK (INARA) : TWITTER (INARA) : INSTAGRAM (INARA) : FACEBOOK (DEV) : INSTAGRAM (DEV) : RELEASE ME RECORDS
 
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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL

The Enigmatic Foe drops first single (w/ non-album tracks) from upcoming 2XLP; Launches podcast w/ drummer Frank Lenz (Richard Swift, Pedro The Lion, Headphones.)

“The Kids Are Alright” lyrics nod to Squeeze’s Difford & Tilbrook. RIYL: XTC, Empire of The Sun, Tahiti 80, Starflyer 59. “The Original Plan” album arrives July 30^th.  
 
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Jared Colinger of The Enigmatic Foe as photographed by Stacy Littleton
 
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The Enigmatic Foe | “The Kids Are Alright”
 

Check out “The Kids Are Alright,” the first single from the upcoming The Original Plan by The Enigmatic Foe at Spill Magazine or at the link below (including two non-album tracks!)
 
“I have no personal experience with being divorced or having kids,” Jared Colinger says of the song’s theme. “I’m not sure what possessed me to write from this perspective. Maybe listening to Squeeze and the songs of Difford & Tilbrook had an impact. It may have been written out of fear, as I was concerned my lyrical inspirations would suffer from being in a positive relationship. I tried to make the father figure be a sympathetic character and to keep the kids as the central focus, while his world is collapsing around him.”
 
[STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/TheEnigmaticFoe-TheKidsAreAlright
 
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The Enigmatic Foe | Podcast

[STREAM]: https://soundcloud.com/enigmaticfoe/the-original-plan-podcast-episode-1-frank-lenz-part-1

 
“In this episode, you’ll be hearing the first part of a phone conversation I had with Frank Lenz (credits with Richard Swift, Everest, Pedro The Lion, Headphones, and many more) who did the drums, percussion, and background vocals on The Original Plan,” says Jared Colinger of The Enigmatic Foe, introducing the first episode of a podcast series about his new album. “We spoke for about an hour about music, his gear, the songwriting process, and you get a real behind the scenes look at the production of the album.”
 
Check out Lenz’s music at thefranklenz.bandcamp.com and velvetbluemusic.com. Future episodes will feature The Original Plan collaborators Josh Dooley and Chris Colbert.
 
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The Enigmatic Foe | Vinyl Pre-Order
 

Pre-order the deluxe double vinyl version of The Enigmatic Foe’s upcoming album The Original Plan at Bandcamp now! Pressed on standard 160gm black vinyl with a gatefold jacket at 45RPM. Includes download card.
 
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The Enigmatic Foe
The Original Plan
July 30^th, 2021
(S/R)
  

 
Track Listing:
 
01. Simulacrum
02. The Kids Are Alright (STREAM)
03. Young Man’s Game
04. Ms. Fortune and Her Mate
05. The Suffering Art
06. Too Much Fun
07. It’s Not Who You Are
08. That Would Be Fun
09. Ninety-Nine Percent
10. Come and Go (STREAM)
11. Pavlovian Cement
12. Darkness and Light
13. Two Strong Words
14. Genesis
 
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The Enigmatic Foe | About
 
The Enigmatic Foe is the work of Knoxville-based songwriter and musician, Jared Colinger.
 
The tunes on his upcoming new album The Original Plan (July 30^th) often remind of a melancholy Andy Partridge of XTC, which is, frankly, a quality we all need to hear about in music more often.
 
Essentially, Colinger’s pop tunes are wrapped in just enough self-awareness to be relatable, and just enough sadness to land.
 
Back to operating The Enigmatic Foe as a solo project, Colinger is once again the Mayor of his own Simpleton (XTC!), although there are a few citizens about including Frank Lenz (Headphones, Richard Swift) on Drums and Josh Dooley (Map, Fine China) on Electric Guitar.
 
The Original Plan was mixed and mastered at Swift’s studio National Freedom by Chris Colbert.
 
With Colinger alone at the helm again, he is also now in full command of articulating those all-too-common solitary feelings of self-doubt and inauthenticity that permeate music that sticks like this.
 
“I’m afraid they can see right through me / That I’m just a facsimile,” he bravely sings on album opener “Simulacrum,” a cathartic and personal song written shortly after Colinger’s father passed, where he sings about the possibility of being an inferior representation of his Dad.
 
The song leads right into what could be a meta address of the “Simulacrum” concept by lifting a song title from The Who on Colinger’s original tune “The Kids Are Alright,” the album’s first single. Far from a facsimile, however, the song shows off just how singular Colinger’s voice and music actually are.
 
Clearly, the confinement of working within his newly re-solo status suits Colinger well. Or, maybe he’s just a great actor?
 
“I’m not sure what possessed me to write from this perspective,” he says of “The Kids Are Alright.” “I have no personal experience with being divorced or having kids. I may have written it out of fear!”
 
RIYL obsessives will also hear shades of Squeeze, Depeche Mode, and The Smiths on Colinger’s expansive 14-cut The Original Plan. Contemporaries such as Empire of The Sun, Tahiti 80, and Starflyer 59 (who Colinger has actually collaborated with previously) also ring bells.
 
 
The Original Plan also delves into a variety of less expected sounds, with “Pavlovian Cement” and it’s Latin Jazz-leaning dueling saxophones, the country shuffle of “Ninety-Nine Percent,” and a 6/8 waltz courtesy of “It’s Not Who You Are.”
 
The overall concepts of The Original Plan address the idea that we often (or maybe never?) end up where we originally set out to get to. Colinger’s route has certainly been circuitous to the max.
 
Over 15-plus years of releasing music, in what venerable rock magazine The Big Takeover calls “a classic evolvement narrative” (also noting that Colinger’s guitars twinkle “like better ‘70s FM rock,” natch), Colinger has mastered the simplicity of reaching for and writing about what’s right there within.
 
He makes this task that so many writers never manage to achieve look, well... simple.
 
The Original Plan by The Enigmatic Foe is schedule for release digitally on July 30^th and as a deluxe two-LP vinyl set. Jared Colinger of The Enigmatic Foe is available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
 
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The Enigmatic Foe | Links
 
ASSETS : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : BANDCAMP : SPOTIFY : APPLE : SOUNDCLOUD
 
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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL

Neil Finn’s youngest son Elroy (also a member of Crowded House, collaborator with Wild Nothing, Connan Mockasin) to release debut self-titled album.

 “Excite Me Much” out today. “Like a Brazilian bossa nova singer parachuted into the middle of an indie pop song.” — Sunday Star Times (New Zealand)
 
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Elroy as photographed by Jimmy Metherell

 
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Elroy | “Excite Me Much”
 

 

Check out “Excite Me Much” from the upcoming debut self-titled album by Elroy at FLOOD Magazine or the link below!
 
Reckoning with “the groggy morning after” as described by FLOOD Magazine, Elroy explains, “The song ‘Excite Me Much’ I wrote the day after my brother’s wedding and I was very short on sleep and hungover due to the festivities of the night before. But the guitar just sort of played the line from this song without me thinking or trying too much.”
 
[STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/Elroy-ExciteMeMuch
 
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Elroy
Elroy
Aug. 13^th, 2021
(Grand Phony Records)
 

Track Listing:
01. The Whole Thing
02. Worth The Wait
03. Lost Our Mystery (SINGLE EDIT | ALBUM VERSION)
04. The Highest Tree
05. Frogs
06. Excite Me Much (STREAM)
07. Life Is At Home
08. Way Down Above Below
09. Doesn’t It Bother You
10. Bye For Now
 
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Elroy | About

After years of touring and collaborating as a drummer and multi-instrumentalist in various groups (Wild Nothing, Connan Mockasin), as well as with his family (extensive worldwide touring with his brother, Liam Finn and as part of Crowded House with his father, Neil Finn), Elroy Finn (going simply by Elroy) will release his debut self-titled album on Aug. 13^th, 2021.
 
A talented multi-instrumentalist – “I was obviously surrounded by instruments a lot growing up thanks to my Dad, so I was very fortunate in that way,” he says – Elroy was written, produced, recorded, and mixed by Elroy himself.
 
A brief self-release of the record in his native New Zealand earned attention right away for the hazy, coaxing sound that Elroy says he hopes will “evoke the weightless feeling you get just before you fall asleep.”
 
It does.
 
New Zealand’s national newspaper Sunday Star Times describes the album as “acquiring layers of sounds and textures and falsetto vocal harmonies” that “gradually transforms into a sturdy wee slab of lo-fi psychedelia.”
 
The paper goes on to highlight the upcoming single “Worth The Wait,” describing Elroy’s performance as “a tentative romantic assessing a new relationship, his voice sweet and airy, like a Brazilian bossa nova singer parachuted into the middle of an indie pop song.”
 
Elroy says the tune is only a “non-specific, ambiguous love song,” which feels like he is speaking from a place of humility that could only be developed by growing up surrounded by legendary songwriting talent.
 
The tune is actually a fine example of Elroy’s ability throughout the album to hit that sweet spot where the songs are “gentle and catchy,” but “deceptively difficult to write,” as noted in the Sunday Star-Times.
 
Similarly, New Zealand’s Listener Magazine, calling the record “bold and assured,” recognizes Elroy’s modesty, saying he “has done well to avoid the pitfalls of emulation or rebellion.” With this record, he takes “the tropes of the catchy, melodic music he was raised around and deliberately drapes them in a shimmering, beguiling gauze.”
 
In regard to his lyrics, Elroy is equally humble.
 
“As far as lyrics go, I tend not to over explain meanings as I think it’s really important for people to mis-hear and interpret them however they want,” he explains, adding slyly, “It’s also better, because it means I don’t have to admit if the song isn’t really about anything.”
 
Perhaps this notion is just Elroy’s humility shining through yet again, or maybe it is a defining characteristic of the deceptive simplicity of his music.
 
Elroy arrives Aug. 13^th, 2021 on the Grand Phony label, preceded by the singles “Excite Me Much,” “Life Is At Home,” and “Worth The Wait.”
 
Elroy is available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
 
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Elroy | Links
 
ASSETS : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : BANDCAMP : GRAND PHONY RECORDS
 
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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL