Erin Anne Signs To Carpark Records

The debut album from Erin Anne, Tough Love is an unruly yet elegant collage of all the elements that make up her musical vocabulary: wildly shredded riffs and lo-fi acoustic ramblings, punk-rock energy and folky austerity, new-wave whimsy and high-flown pop theatrics. The original album arrived in June 2019, quickly catching the attention of Carpark Records who have released a digital reissue of the album today, with a special remastered vinyl version slated for December.

Showcasing Erin's playful ability to bring charm and humor to any situation, she releases the new video for album single "Tough Love" today, directed and edited by Madeleine Peters. "Tough Love" sprung from a day at seminar when Erin was trying to make a very simple point and couldn't get a word out. "I was incredibly frustrated. Being a woman in academia can be exhausting," she says. As the track took shape she flipped the experience, determined to gain power from it. And "Tough Love" eventually morphed into a massive anthem, a thrillingly cathartic refusal to let her voice go unheard.

The video follows Erin becoming a series of selves/characters throughout the day (the Guitar Hero, the Dancing Queen, and the Used Car Salesman), an authentic representation of her own funny experiences with identity: fractured, malleable, theatrical, and very queer. She explains, "When Maddie and I made the video, I had just read (with great delight) Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion. She says in her introduction, "These are the prisms through which I have come to know myself. In this book, I tried to undo their acts of refraction. I wanted to see the way I would see in a mirror. It's possible I painted an elaborate mural instead." I think that the "Tough Love" video achieves something quite similar. It was also a great excuse to walk down Lincoln Blvd at peak rush hour and wink at people while wearing a huge coat. In that moment, I was but a Simple Man on his way to work; and it was the most hilariously confident I've felt in a while."

Currently working on a PHD in musicology at UCLA, Erin Anne's journey began during her undergraduate studies at Bowdoin College where she experienced a life-changing revelation upon viewing the Kathleen Hanna documentary The Punk Singer for a course on gender, sexuality, and popular music. "I grew up in New Jersey where everybody played lacrosse and I had very limited access to anything remotely queer, which meant I'd never heard of riot grrrl before," she says.

With a narrative voice at turns thoughtful and rebellious, confrontational and shy, the L.A.-based singer/songwriter spins her lyrics from such divergent sources as formative queer texts and her own moon-phase-specific dream journal, ultimately presenting a body of work that bravely documents the slow and strange process of becoming yourself. Co-produced with Alex Rogers (an engineer/multi-instrumentalist known for his work with bands like Family Hahas and Tambourines), Tough Love offers a potent introduction to Erin's kaleidoscopic musicality and infinitely unpredictable guitar work.

Watch the video for "Tough Love" here:

Photo Credit: Madeleine Peters

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