“Claude Fontaine’s music perfectly captures the thrill that comes with discovering an excellent old LP at a record store.” — Noisey
“The Los Angeles-based Fontaine is preparing for the release of her debut album […] ‘Cry for Another’ is a wonderful early warning.” — Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles-based songwriter and singer, Claude Fontaine, announces her debut, self-titled album, out April 26th on Innovative Leisure (LA-based label who has worked with the likes of BADBADNOTGOOD, Rhye, Allah-Las, Nosaj Thing, Hanni El Khatib, Nick Waterhouse, Classixx, etc). Today, she shares lead single, “Pretending He Was You,” which premiered this morning via Noisey.
Stream “Pretending He Was You” —
https://soundcloud.com/innovativeleisure/claude-fontaine-pretending-he-was-you-4/s-GYXxX
Last month, Fontaine presented listeners with early single “Cry For Another,” a track praised by the Los Angeles Times as “a straight-up rocksteady song that conjures the essence of Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1960s” and a “wonderful early warning” of what’s to come. Fontaine even made a special appearance at Ulla Johnson’s New York Fashion Week show in support of the single; Johnson, immediately upon hearing the track, personal reached out to Fontaine to perform it.
A love song to classic reggae and Brazilian music, Claude Fontaine is an album honoring that feeling of finding a home away from home. Fontaine wrote and demoed her debut album after living in London off Portobello Road and stumbling into Honest Jon’s, a long-lived spot for fringe records collected from the furthest edges of the world.
She was immediately captivated by the old Studio One, Trojan, and Treasure Isle records she was discovering—the same records that got The Clash covering “Police And Thieves,” and the Slits sharing a bill with Steel Pulse. “I wandered in one day and from the first moment I was under a spell,” Fontaine says. “I was transfixed.”
Tracked at both Kingsize Sound Labs in Northeast Los Angeles and Sage and Sound, Chet Baker’s legendary old studio in Hollywood, Claude Fontaine was recorded with a murderer’s row of session players, including Airto Moreira, the Brazilian drummer whose work both solo and in collaboration—with Miles Davis, Astrud Gilberto, Chick Corea, Annette Peacock—make him an actual living legend, Tony Chin, (Althea and Donna, King Tubby, Dennis Brown), RonnieMcQueen (Steel Pulse), Rock Deadrick (Ziggy Marley), Andre De Santanna (Sergio Mendes, Flora Purim), Gibi Dos Santos (Sergio Mendes), Nando Duarte (Gal Costa, Elza Soares), Fabiano Do Nascimento (Mia Doi Todd), and Jaime Hinckson (Hollie Cook, Daniel ‘Bambaata’ Marley).
“I hope this record will transport people,” said Fontaine. “I want it to feel like those lost records, like it got lost in the dusty bottom bin of some world music store in London because that’s how I felt when I walked in to that record store. I want it to be its own world.”
For those in the LA area, Fontaine will celebrate the album’s release with a show at Zebulon on Fri. April 26th. Ticket are available here.
Watch “Cry For Another” Video —
https://youtu.be/ztHTOL_EJWM
Claude Fontaine Tracklist:
01. Cry For Another
02. Hot Tears
03. Little Sister
04. Love Street
05. Play By Play
06. Pretending He Was You
07. I’ll Play The Fool
08. Strings of Your Guitar
09. Footprints In The Sand
10. Our Last Goodbye
Pre-order Claude Fontaine —
https://claudefontaine.bandcamp.com/album/claude-fontaine
Keep your mind open.
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