FRANKIE LEE

SET FOR UK RETURN WITH SEPTEMBER HEADLINE TOUR

NEW ALBUM STILLWATER OUT NOW ON LOOSE

SHARES NEW SINGLE & VIDEO FOR “IN THE BLUE”

“Lush and honeyed but with an edge lurking underneath…natural and effortless…[Frankie Lee] falls between early Eagles and Neil Young’s Harvest Moon with a strong whiff of Tom Petty” – American Songwriter

“beneath the familiar glow of his beautifully burnished Americana lurks a restless, angry soul.” – The Guardian

“the hot tarmac romance of a roots rocking War On Drugs” – Mojo 4*

“With an introductory guitar riff that nods to Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend” and an achingly beautiful chorus, “Downtown Lights” pines for the town’s purer days, before capitalism, condos and the proliferation of tourist shops choked Stillwater of its rough-edged charm.” – Rolling Stone Country

“Lee and his band furnish an atmosphere somewhere between The Band’s Music from The Big Pink and Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska” – UNCUT

Following the release of his new album Stillwater, FRANKIE LEE has announced that he will be returning to the UK in September for a string of dates, including a slot at The Long Road festival. The tour is Lee’s first headline tour in four years and follows his recent run of shows with Strand of Oaks.

Frankie Lee UK Tour Dates

04 Sep – LONDON, Paper Dress Vintage

05 Sep – WINCHESTER, Railway

07 Sep – LEICESTERSHIRE, The Long Road festival

09 Sep – BIRMINGHAM, Hare & Hounds

10 Sep – SHEFFIELD, Dorothy Pax

11 Sep – NOTTINGHAM, Running Horse

12 Sep – GLASGOW, Broadcast

Supporting Frankie Lee for his shows in London and Winchester will be Loose label-mates Native Harrow.

Compared favourably in reviews to Springsteen’s Nebraska, The Band’s Music From The Big Pink, Neil Young, Tom Petty and fellow Minnesotan Bob Dylan, Frankie Lee’s Stillwater takes its name from the small town in which he was born. Frankie claims to have been running from it and to it ever since. Whilst on his 2015 debut album, American Dreamer, Frankie’s characters were set loose in a seemingly inescapable inheritance of self-destruction, on Stillwater they seek a path towards redemption by returning home and confronting the past. Based on the loss of youth, with a focus on the dissolution of love, as well as the real life of the working class, Stillwater is a scrapbook of short stories, reveries and musical growth by one of America’s greatest unknown songwriters.

Following up his critically acclaimed 2016 debut, American Dreamer, which Rolling Stone called “debut record of the year”, Lee continues to hold a mirror up to the idea of the American Dream, with new album Stillwater, lamenting the decimation of the working class and the effects of unfettered capitalism on communities across the country. Stillwater is out now.

Stillwater is out now as well as being available to stream in full via Youtube, featuring archive video footage of the town of Stillwater: https://youtu.be/ODKm0OVRupY

Stillwater is a small town between two hills in the middle of America. Frankie Lee was born there and has been running from it and to it ever since. Stillwater is also a record about life in middle America. A “record” meaning simply that, converting sound into permanent form. This is the story of how that record came to be.

For the recording of the follow up to American Dreamer – “debut album of the year” Rolling Stone – Frankie Lee had visited a few studios and they all felt like the same big production factories. He had spent the best part of a year wrangling livestock and had a pile of cash on the table to pay for the biggest and best gadgets which he then found he ultimately had absolutely no interest in. Lee wanted to get away from people who thought music should be made in isolation booths or that bigger was better. All the people who wanted the next big thing. Lee wanted to be the last little thing, he just had to find the right space to do it in.

One day Frankie Lee was walking down main street in his hometown and it hit him that he could bring the studio to them. Luckily, the house he grew up in was available. His mum had lived in the same house in Stillwater for most of Lee’s life. It’s a small cedar-sided house on an acre lot on the northern end of town, tucked back in the woods on a small hill, it looks like a log cabin.

So they packed in their instruments, tuned the old upright piano and rolled out a tape machine next to the wood-burning stove. Music was made from morning ‘til night. For three days straight, they ate together, stayed together and played together. Cutting six songs the first day and five the next, most of what they captured was first or second take. The music is minimal and warm. Lee describes his sound as “Western Music”, steel guitars and synths blend with acoustic guitars and omni chords. The musical brush is gold and green, dipped in deep blue. He slips in and out of time throughout the record. One line in a song could be its first or last. The song-stories are a blend of his own romantic grit. Ex-lovers, lost land and hope flung out of a car window, fraying in the wind.

On American Dreamer, Lee’s characters were set loose in a seemingly inescapable inheritance of self-destruction. On Stillwater, they seek a path towards redemption by returning home and confronting the past. Based on the loss of youth, with a focus on the dissolution of love, as well as the real life of the working class, Stillwater is a scrapbook of short stories, reveries and musical growth by one of America’s greatest unknown songwriters.

Stillwater is out 24^th May 2019 via Loose

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