July 12, 2024 (Los Angeles, CA) — Today, So-Cal alt-pop artist Presence announces his highly anticipated debut album, TEARS IN THE MOSHPIT!, out via Nettwerk on Friday, October 4.
Coming on the heels of two dozen singles and 60 million YouTube views, TEARS IN THE MOSHPIT! is Presence’s first true artistic statement, an album announcing the arrival of a multi-hyphenate rapper, singer, poet and “orchestra conductor” in the studio. After building his fanbase as a true DIY auteur, the difference between Jonathon Martinez and the Presence project lies in a newfound confidence to open his artistic process to collaboration.
The bold blend of post-punk, heartfelt hip-hop and earnest emo emerged from collaborations with Grammy Award-winning producer Sweater Beats (Lizzo, Woosong), Dillan Witherow (Lizzy McAlpine, Laufey) and co-writer Gianni Taylor, with mixing done by Zach Fogarty, who established his bona fides working with similarly minded firebrands in Denzel Curry and Jean Dawson. “I think my genre is myself,” he asserts.
“I’ve always been able to hear what the music should sound like in my head. I guess I just didn’t have the tools to put it together until I met Sweaters and Gianni,” he shares. “Each song starts with me pouring my heart out to them about something in my life that I’ve experienced, then we discuss how I feel about that experience now and we do our best to capture that through song…These songs are my stories, but they’re the vessel I needed to breathe them out of me.”
Presence first introduced TEARS IN THE MOSHPIT! with the January single “SCARED OF THE FALL!,” which has collected over half a million streams across DSPs. In February, he nearly sold out first headline show at the Moroccan Lounge, where fans arrived with DIY Presence merch. March saw him release the single “PAST LIFE!,” and perform at SXSW for the first time. Since, he’s released two more singles “RUNNING BACK 2 YOU!” and “MY LOSS!”
Today, Presence shares “YOU DON’T KNOW ME ANYMORE!” the fifth single from the album. Produced by Sweaters and co-written by Gianni Taylor and Ben Free, he wrote this ballad for his mother about his rocky relationship with her mother.
“My mom hasn’t talked to her mom in almost 5 years,” Presence reveals. “Throughout the early years of my life I saw my grandma be nothing short of cruel to my mom…. Even then, despite all the fights my grandma tried to start, my mom fought to love her, until she couldn’t anymore. This song is about the decision my mom had to make to cut her own mom out of her life, because she wasn’t healthy for her.”
The stories on TEARS IN THE MOSHPIT! resonate on a truly personal level, yet the sum total expresses a fundamental anxiety of a generation. “This album is a culmination of everything I felt in the first 21 years of my life. Making it brought me back to life in a lot of ways. If someone can listen to it, and feel the way I did when we made it, that would be enough for me.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW ME ANYMORE!” is available now at all digital retailers here: https://presence.ffm.to/youdontknowmeanymore
No comments:
Post a Comment