Howard Gladstone sounds the alarm in his environmentally themed new single and video The World’s Become A Warmer Place — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
With glistening folk guitars and lyrics that urge taking a stand against climate change instead of giving in to fear, The World’s Become A Warmer Place is just one of the many topical tracks from the Toronto singer-songwriter’s new album Concord Sessions. A hybrid folk album that holds a distressing and disarming mirror up to human nature in an age of environmental and humanitarian crisis, Concord Sessions focus on the broader picture of where humanity stands as a species.
“These are songs to help heal the planet,” the singer-songwriter says of the disc, which includes songs tackling activism and protest, the environmental crisis, human nature, history, forced migration and the plight of refugees — while repeatedly urging us to find the resolve to save our broken world and ourselves.
Album opener Building A Fence is a seemingly light and upbeat blues laced with intricately layered lyrics that delve into themes of division, privilege, separation, and impending crises. “These ideas are touched on throughout the song and album, sometimes just below the surface — like an underground river,” Gladstone explains. Elsewhere, Occupy pays tribute to idealistic activists who animate social justice movements with optimism and hope; Love In The First Degree is a sweet duet performed with Laura Fernandez; Tear Down These Walls and When Lightning Strikes are powerful new versions of previously recorded songs.
The album’s title pays tribute to the live-off-the-floor techniques used at Toronto’s E-Room Studios, where Peter J. Moore handled recording, engineering, mixing, and mastering. “What you hear is basically how it went down and sounded in the studio over the two-day recording period,” says Gladstone, who was accompanied by guitarist Tony Quarrington, bassist George Koller, drummer Bob Scott and vocalist Laura Fernandez. “There are no overdubs; the only thing that was added were background vocals. It’s recorded in high-resolution audio, too, so every nuance and wrinkle is audible.”
Watch The World’s Become A Warmer Place above, listen to The Concord Sessions below, and find out more at Howard Gladstone’s website, Twitter and Facebook.
