May 24, 2024 – Indie-electro-pop artist Bay Ledges is excited to announce his sophomore album, Rivers, will be released on August 16th. The album, partly written in response to the death of several family members of singer/songwriter/producer Zach Hurd, is an enthralling reflection on love, loss, and change. Referring to two distinct bodies of water in his home state of Maine, Rivers, infuses each track with equal parts unguarded feeling and unfettered playful imagination. The follow-up to his 2022 debut album Ritual, it expands on its predecessor’s kaleidoscopic sound and embraces an even more free-form approach to songcraft and production resulting in Hurd’s most experimental and emotionally layered output to date.
Hurd worked entirely on his own at his former home studio on the Androscoggin—a river that flows out to a nearby bay and joins with the Kennebec River, which in turn runs through his hometown of Bath, Maine. Newly based in Northern California, Hurd looks back on his time spent living on the Androscoggin as deeply influential on his development as an artist. “During the last three years, the river became a huge part of my life,” he says. “I’d work on the album and then take breaks and walk along the river, recording voice memos with whatever ideas came to me. After a while I realized that the river is a metaphor for so many things, including writing songs. To me, it’s like fishing in a river—either you’re going to get something or you’re not, and you can’t really force it, but you do have to show up. I think there’s so much power and magic in that.”
Today, he shares the deeply personal glitch pop track “Setting Free,” which was written after he spread his father and grandparents' ashes. The hypnotic indie-pop track is a frenetic yet intimate meditation on release. “You never forget the people you loved, but it did feel like we were letting them go and allowing ourselves to begin a new chapter as a family,” Hurd explains. Not only pivotal in establishing the emotional undercurrent of Rivers, “Setting Free” found Bay Ledges pushing into previously unexplored sonic terrain and incorporating unexpected elements such as a galvanizing guitar solo.
LISTEN + SHARE “SETTING FREE”
https://bayledgesmusic.ffm.to/settingfree
Rivers will also include his downtempo electronic ballad, “Silver,” and his 2023 single, “Sylvia (Nanana)”, Hurd started Bay Ledges in 2015 in his bedroom shortly after moving to Los Angeles, where he stayed until 2020, when he moved back to his small hometown in coastal Maine for the last four years. Earlier this spring, he relocated back to California, this time to the Bay Area. The project initially took off when Hurd’s 2016 single, “Safe,” jumped to the number three spot on Spotify’s Global Viral Chart, it currently has over 30 million streams. Since releasing Ritual, the record has garnered over 70 million streams worldwide and received praise from the likes of Billboard, Under The Radar, and Flood.
Known for his enthrallingly energetic live show, Bay Ledges has spent the last few years on the road sharing stages like Red Rocks and The Greek with acts like Goth Babe, Yoke Lore, Big Wild, Trevor Hall, Magic City Hippies, and The Palms and selling out headline shows. To support the new record he is excited to announce a summer headline tour that begins on August 7th in Phoenix and wraps on the 24th in Los Angeles. A full list of dates can be found below.
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