Today, Princeton, NJ-based guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Jonah Tolchin’s fifth studio album, Lava Lamp, is out now! Also out today is the official video for “Lava Lamp,” which was directed, produced, and edited by Kendra Morris with cinematographer Nick Sgaglione.
In support of the album, Tolchin will embark on a U.S. tour beginning tonight in Burlington, VT, with stops in Boston, Providence, RI, and a hometown area show July 29 at the Hopewell Theater in Hopewell, NJ. A complete list of dates is below; tickets are on sale here.
More sonically diverse than his previous efforts, the album’s “cosmic outlaw” lifeblood is built around the energy of loose, live-in-the-studio performances steeped in Tolchin’s folk-blues stylings and fueled by grunge guitars and a robust rhythm section.
Co-produced with multi-instrumentalist/engineer Nic Coolidge, Lava Lamp was recorded with a three-piece that included Coolidge on bass and Tolchin’s longtime friend and collaborator Kevin Clifford on drums.
“The three of us are the only musicians on the entire album,” explains Tolchin, who played more electric guitar than ever on the album. “We recorded most of it, even my vocals, live on the floor as a band, just feeding off each other’s energy.”
A bridge between roots and rock, between youth and adulthood, between expectation and liberation, for his fifth studio album Tolchin penned more coy and irreverent songs, drawn from freewheeling, uninhibited, stream-of-consciousness writing sessions, an evolution inspired by The Pixies.
“I remember taking my soon-to-be-wife to see The Pixies play at The Fillmore in Philly as a Valentine’s Day gift and just having my mind blown,” Tolchin says. “It was like, ‘Wow, this is some real, raw emotion being delivered through some loud, electrified music.’ After spending so much of my time in the folk and blues worlds, it just hit me in a completely different way.”
Jonah Tolchin On Tour
July 15 – FOAM – Burlington, VT
July 17 – Maine Craft Distilling – Portland, ME**
July 19 – City Winery Boston / Haymarket Lounge – Boston, MA**
July 20 – The Marigold Theatre – Easthampton, MA**
July 21 – 195 District Park – Providence, RI**
July 22 – The Pump House – South Kingstown, RI**
July 29 – Hopewell Theater – Hopewell, NJ
September 7 – Sundown Concert Series – Haddon Township, NJ^
September 25 – Yellowstone Harvest Festival – Livingston, MT
** w/Coyote Island
^ w/Richard Thompson