The Armory

Andy Shauf with Lutalo

Andy Shauf’s latest album, Norm, out now on ANTI-, and presents its lead single/video, “Wasted On You.” In conjunction, Shauf announces a 2023 Norm Tour including some of his biggest shows to-date (tickets are on sale this Friday). Hailed as “a gifted storyteller” (NPR Music) for 2016’s The Party and 2020’s The Neon Skyline, Shauf writes albums that unfold like short fiction, full of colorful characters, fine details and a rich emotional depth. With Norm, however, Shauf has slyly deconstructed and reshaped the style for which he’s been celebrated, elevating his songwriting with intricate layers and perspectives, challenging himself to find a new direction. Under the guise of an intoxicating collection of jazz-inflected romantic ballads, his storytelling has become decidedly more oblique, hinting at ominous situations and dark motivations.
 
Shauf had planned to be touring around The Neon Skyline but, like many of us in the early days of the pandemic, he spent a lot of time alone instead. He sequestered himself in his garage studio, self-producing and playing every instrument on Norm, a collection of more conventional songs written predominantly on guitar, piano and synths. Shauf’s goals were uncomplicated: create something melody-driven rather than chord-driven, and make it modern. Shauf recruited Neal Pogue (Tyler, the Creator, Janelle Monae, Outkast), a prodigious shaper of genre-and-time-defying tracks, to mix the album, further building on the gently levitating, synth-laden atmospherics.
 
During this period, he was captivated by David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, which seemed to validate Shauf’s instinct to mix perspectives and tinker with shadowy narratives. "The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way," Shauf says of the pleasant songs that precede the album's centerpiece. "But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you're going to realize that it's sinister."
 
“Wasted On You” doubles as Norm’s lead single and opening track, a lilting pop introduction with r&b cadences and dreamy textures. While at first listen, a love song, Shauf grapples with death and the legacies left behind in its wake. “What happens when they die?” Shauf begins the record by asking. The questions continue, and his final query — “Was all my love wasted on you?” — hangs in the air, with subtle percussion, tender guitar, and synths escorting the song out. The accompanying video, directed by V Haddad and written by Shauf, is a playful depiction of God (played by Lauren Servideo) and Jesus, once again presenting the duality in Shauf’s music.
 
Watch Andy Shauf’s “Wasted On You” Video
 
After gaining indie notoriety with The Party and a Polaris Music Prize nomination, performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and CBS This Morning: Saturday, and praise from the likes of Pitchfork, ESQUIRE, NPR Music, Stereogum, The Atlantic and beyond for The Neon Skyline, Shauf has left the realm of things he’s known on his third album, pivoting away from the semi-autobiographical, and pushing himself to grow as a songwriter in an entirely different way. With Norm, he recreated his idea of a concept album, and also made it about faith and fatalism. But Shauf has realized he doesn't need to moralize. He's assigned that task to us, the listeners. At once narrators and investigators, we fill in the blanks.

Tinsley Ellis with Opening Act TBA

Tenille Townes with Opening Act TBA

An astute observer of the human condition, Tenille Townes’ discography is rife with stories that reverberate with heavy truths. Following the release of a duet with world-superstar Bryan Adams, the revered songwriter, and CCMA Entertainer of the Year, released a five-song project called the Train Track Work tapes in 2023. Townes conceptualized, wrote, and recorded the EP on a 15-day, 3,000-mile, train trip where she played 65 shows at stops in communities across Canada.

Townes is a 15-time Canadian Country Music Association Award winner (CCMA), a two-time JUNO Awards Country Album of the Year Winner, and a two-time ACM Award-winner. She is also the first female artist in Media base Canada history to achieve two No. 1 singles (Music Canada Gold-certified “Jersey on The Wall (I’m Just Asking),” Music Canada Platinum-certified and RIAA Gold-certified “Somebody’s Daughter”).

Townes has opened for legendary artists such as Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Shania Twain and George Strait. Townes has also toured extensively outside of the US–last year she performed for fans in Australia, Ireland, Germany, and had a sold-outrun of headlining shows in the UK. Her international touring efforts earned her a nomination for the CMA International Artist Achievement Award.

A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Townes has been featured by NPR, Variety, Refinery 29, Billboard, Rolling Stone, NBC’s “TODAY,” BBC and more. Additionally, she has raised over $2.5 million for Big Hearts For Big Kids, a non-profit she started when she was 15years old to benefit a youth shelter in her hometown, which has grown to support US-based organizations including the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, S.A.F.E. Animal Haven, and the Manna House.

Sean Hayes is a Bay Area singer-songwriter who makes music to dance to or cry to, or maybe both at the same time. He was born in New York City, raised in North Carolina, and honed his earliest musical chops in a band playing Irish and old-time tunes — but his unique style of deeply felt, R&B-inflected folk really matured during his two decades singing and playing in cafes, bars, and night clubs of San Francisco.

His voice layers wonder and heartache upon grit and gravel, sex and soul. His lyrics carry an unpretentious wisdom. He’s dueted with Aimee Mann; been covered by the Be Good Tanyas; and toured with Anais Mitchell (performing songs from Hadestown, before it was an award-winning Broadway show). His songs have appeared on NPR, NBC and HBO.

Esmé Patterson releases her long-awaited 5th full-length album, Notes from Nowhere, early this October, creating a genre-avoidant musical realm that blooms with honesty and magic. Ever provocative, poignant, polymorphic, and prescient (her apocalypse-themed There Will Come Soft Rains, was released on the first day of Covid19 lockdowns in March 2020), Patterson’s latest release returns to the (super)natural world, evoking the chill of dead winter, parched-forest lightning, midday moons, and the cicada hum of summer swamps. Esmé’s intense performances arrest her audience in ears-open shared contemplation. Her music churns and crackles until you find yourself frozen, staring into the fire.

 

Julian Lage with Opening Act TBA

Hailed as one of the most prodigious guitarists of his generation and “highest category of improvising musicians" (New Yorker), Julian Lage has spent more than a decade searching through the myriad strains of American musical history via impeccable technique, free association and a spirit of infinite possibility. The California-born New York-based musician boasts a prolific resume on his own accord in addition to collaborating with Gary Burton and John Zorn, as well as duo projects with Nels Cline, Chris Eldridge and Fred Hersch, among others.

*$1 of every ticket will benefit World Central Kitchen

Dar Williams with Opening Act TBA