The newest release from singer/songwriter Russell Howard, Safe To Say is the first selection from his upcoming record City Heart. The fruit of a year long collaboration with producer and percussionist Lawson White (Santigold, Chromeo), City Heart represents an evolution in Russell’s music. Embracing the vintage 60′s sound of Yellowbirds’ Sam Cohen, City Heart is awash with rich textures and distant murmurs while remaining a doggedly acoustic endeavor.
“I see this record as a bridge, both pers...
The newest release from singer/songwriter Russell Howard, Safe To Say is the first selection from his upcoming record City Heart. The fruit of a year long collaboration with producer and percussionist Lawson White (Santigold, Chromeo), City Heart represents an evolution in Russell’s music. Embracing the vintage 60′s sound of Yellowbirds’ Sam Cohen, City Heart is awash with rich textures and distant murmurs while remaining a doggedly acoustic endeavor.
“I see this record as a bridge, both personally and musically, between my pop singer/ songwriter beginnings and a more indie/folk/alternative future. I’d like to see people on both sides of that divide connecting with the music.”
Scheduled to begin in July 2010 at Clinton Recording, NYC, City Heart was delayed by the sale of Clinton’s building on 10th Ave. Displacing Lawson’s production company with only a week’s notice, the closing put the future of the project in question. Seizing the opportunity, Russell launched a Kickstarter campaign in August and raised $11k for the production of City Heart. With Lawson’s Good Child Music moved into a temporary basement adjacent to Flux Studios, work finally began in October 2010 and continued on and off through the new year. Early Sessions with Sam Cohen set the town for the record – a vintage treatment of Russell’s alt singer/songwriter sound.
“The surroundings in which we found ourselves added a lot of color to City Heart. The songs are the same, but I don’t think we would have made the same record at Clinton. Listen to Home Sweet Home and you can feel January in Manhattan.”
By February, Good Child’s time in the basement had run its course and once again the project was put on hold while the studio was disassembled. With City Heart nearly finished but the timeline uncertain, Russell traveled home to Texas to work on vocals before finally reconvening with Lawson to mix over the summer of 2011. In the end, what could easily have been a misadventure has become a defining achievement of Russell’s young career.
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