Retro Jazz Artist Laura Ainsworth Teams With XO Publicity For New Album 'You Asked For It'

Eclectus Records and Swing City Productions are excited to announce that retro jazz singer/recording artist Laura Ainsworth (www.lauraainsworth.com) has signed with top indie publicist XO Publicity to promote her music for radio, print media and licensing deals. Because of this, the US release of her new album You Asked For It has been rescheduled to November 18th.

XO co-founder Chris Estey said, "We at XO Publicity are deliciously excited to share Laura Ainsworth's magnificent voice with the world. As the French say, 'goodbye' is to die a little, but to listen to Laura is to live."

You Asked For It is Ainsworth's fourth album of all-new material (a best-of LP entitled Top Shelf was expanded into a deluxe mini-LP CD released in Japan by Ratspack Records last year.) You Asked For It was recently released digitally in South Korea by Music Island, and in Japan by Ratspack Records as a deluxe mini-LP CD with the bonus track "As Time Goes By." The deluxe mini-LP CD with the extra track will be available as an import in the US on November 18th via Bandcamp.

You Asked For It features Ainsworth's band of top North Texas jazz musicians led by keyboardist/arranger Brian Piper, recorded live in the studio. Ms. Ainsworth wanted to celebrate the end of lockdowns with an album suggesting an impromptu cocktail party, inspired by Julie London's classic album Julie At Home that was recorded in her living room.

The songs were requested by fans online and at live gigs, so they include more standards than Ms. Ainsworth normally records, including "Cry Me a River," "All the Things You Are" and "Isn't It Romantic." She said, "It was a challenge to create fresh and unique arrangements to make them my own, but I'm very happy with the results. I also included the seldom-heard original intros on many of them."

"And there are a few quirky requests that turned out surprisingly well, like my sultry lounge-jazz take on 'Goldfinger,'" which is the lead single, with a film noir-inspired lyric video forthcoming. "I reimagined it as the singer warning other women away from her toxic ex. After we cut it, I was surprised to learn from Mark Steyn's 'Song of the Week' podcast that it was similar to the songwriters' original demo, before all the bombastic James Bond elements were added."

Ms. Ainsworth has become a leading figure in the vintage music movement, a rising genre of younger artists putting fresh twists on classic midcentury styles such as lounge jazz, swing and exotica. Her previous albums, Keep It To Yourself, Necessary Evil and New Vintage, have enjoyed worldwide airplay, won numerous indie music awards and been featured in a number of top-selling compilations, including the Goa Chill-Out Zone series and This Is Vintage Now, Vol. 2: Happiness Is A Way of Life.

Starting in January 2023, her earlier albums will be rereleased digitally one per month, and remastered for a warm analog LP sound by engineer Jessica Thompson, who was Grammy-nominated for her work on Erroll Garner's classic album, The Complete Concert by the Sea. She also mastered You Asked For It.