Lawrence Arabia releases new song 'Solitary Guys'
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One of New Zealand’s most acclaimed songwriters returns to releasing music, but in a new way. Feeling strangled by music industry release norms of premieres, deadlines and embargoes on his music, Lawrence Arabia decided to take a step closer to his fans sending them his new music as he makes it.
With an ambitious task of producing one brand new single every month for 12 months, Lawrence has buddied up with Kickstarter to form the Singles Club. Fans receive new material hot off the press in return for pre-ordering the full album or other nominal contributions to the cause. As Lawrence explains,“Lawrence Arabia's 2018 Singles Club is a chance to support the creation of my new music AND receive my very latest work as close as possible to its creation without having to wait for the long process of the pressing and pre-release publicity of a record….Essentially you're purchasing my next "album" in advance.”
With his egalitarian spirit intact, Lawrence will digitally release all singles via the usual channels once a month but that will be a couple of weeks after the fans get it.
Fans have been signing up in droves confident in the songwriting chops of this talented musician as the winner of the prestigious APRA Silver Scroll and the IMNZ Taite Music Prize with his album, Chant Darling, in 2009 and a long history of collaborations with some of NZ’s most loved talent includingThe Phoenix Foundation, Neil Finn, Bic Runga and Connan Mockasin.
The first single to be released is entitled ‘Solitary Guys’ in which Lawrence tells a tale where “women, tired of lame male come-ons, have all decamped to some other star system where things are much better."
Introducing the idea of liner notes for digital singles, Lawrence Arabia shares with his fans, “Being that my crowdfunding process is still on the go, this was necessarily a pretty self-contained production. I tracked all the instruments in my little office studio in Eden Terrace, Auckland , I went to Alistair Deverick's (Boycrush) studio at The Lab in Mt Eden and we did a super simple two mic drum recording. Friday before sending out to Singles Club, I took the stems over to Roundhead Studios for Simon Gooding to mix and after due consideration over the weekend, he did a quick mastering job on the Monday – and here it is! 'Solitary Guys'."