Friday, September 24, 2021

LGBTQ artist news: Pop singer/songwriter Wrabel's anticipated full length debut album out now; Canadian pop duo Bestfriend's EP arrives next week

Wrabel's debut full-length album ‘these words are all for you’ (Big Gay Records/Nettwerk) is available now. 
LISTEN HERE

Lead single "Nothing But the Love" is currently climbing Billboard’s Adult Top 40 Airplay chart.  

“This record is a collection of pages torn from my diary -- stories and truths, Like an autobiography of sorts of the past 8-10 years of my life,” said Wrabel about the album in a press release. “My biggest dream and my biggest hope for this record is that it would reach people and make them feel less alone. If they’re in love, that it would help celebrate that love; If they lost love, that it would be a shoulder to cry on. Whoever you are and wherever you are, i hope you know that these words are all for you.”

Wrabel's career so far has encompassed collaborations with Afrojack & Marshmello respectively in 2014, his first charting song “11 Blocks” in 2016, the debut of his acclaimed LGBTQ+ anthem “The Village” in 2017, collaborations with Kesha and P!nk in 2019 and a performance of “hurts like hell” on NBC’s TODAY in early 2020.

Additionally, Wrabel has co-writing/performance credits on tracks by Celeste, Backstreet Boys, Ellie Goulding, Louis Tomlinson, Louis the Child, Wafia, Cash Cash, and more. He’s released four previous EPs, and has racked up 265 million streams across all DSP platforms.

Track Listing:

1. Good
2. Wish You Well
3. Back to Back (with Duncan Laurence)
4. Nothing But the Love
5. London
6. Don’t Pick Up the Phone
7. Cars
8. Let Love In
9. It’s Us” (feat. Madi Diaz)
10. Pale Blue Dot
11. Love is Not a Simple Thing to Lose

photo: Shore Fire Media 


Bestfriend have a new EP, Places I’ve Lived, scheduled for October 1. The Canadian indie-pop duo was half-formed through a mutual friend and half-formed through Instagram DMs in 2018. The two young artists, Stacy Kim and Kaelan Geoffrey, make music from thousands of miles apart; Stacy in the west, Kaelan in the east.

Through trial and error (and many gigabytes of .wav files sent back and forth), they’ve found their stride in dreamy, story-telling pop songs. Bestfriend used their innate skills in collaboration and intuition to release their first original dual-release single, Television '99 and twentyfour. Geoffrey's expert use of dreamy, almost euphoric synthesizers paired with Kim's guiding, melodious vocals pulls listeners into a shared space, creating harmony within the themes of uncertainty.

After testing the waters of remote collaborating on this dual release, they swung into their next release, dropped mid-lockdown in July of 2020. "Last Bus in the A.M." is a fast and frenzied single about your favorite worst party — the pair received accolades on the single, landing the Spotify Fresh Finds playlist, airtime on London’s Hoxton Radio and coverage on Hype Machine.

Riding the momentum of the previous release, "Does It Matter?" was released in September 2020, becoming their breakthrough single — once again earning airtime on Hoxton Radio, added to the Spotify editorial playlist soda, and covered by publications in the likes of FMS mag, GigSoup and A1234.​

Last month, Bestfriend released "Hannah in the City," a bittersweet indie pop bop about life's big what if's. The track was premiered via The Line of Best Fit

Places I’ve Lived is a love letter to all of the experiences and people from Bestfriend’s young adult lives. Heavily inspired by storytelling songwriters like Lorde, The National, Big Thief and Julia Jacklin, with production inspired by Bleachers, FINNEAS, The 1975, Rina Sawayama.

Created remotely, with Stacy on the west coast and Kaelan in the east, Stacy would write songs, create rough demos and send them to Kaelan who would then produce it from there, passing it back and forth between each other to add/detract elements. Places I’ve Lived will be closely followed by its sister EP, Places I’ve Left, thematically similar to its predecessor.

For this run, Bestfriend has built out a letter-writing campaign http://bestfriendirl.com/letters - fans can write letters to their old selves / places they used to live / just how their day was, and if they write a letter and provide their address, they’ll eventually receive one back, anonymized.

The new EP was written and produced entirely by the duo and mixed by Grammy-nominated Travis Ference (Tori Kelly, Imagine Dragons).

Track listing: 

1. You Want Everyone to Love You
2. Does it Matter?
3. Hannah in the City
4. Last Bus in the A.M.
5. For Grace, After the Party
6. Good to See You

Photo: Tell All Your Friends PR

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