New album 'Beacon' out on October 4
Los Angeles singer-songwriter Anna Vogelzang has released the second single, “Icarus,” from her upcoming new album Beacon, due out October 4th, 2019 and available to pre-order now. Premiering the song with The Bluegrass Situation, “Icarus” is available now on all digital service providers here. Vogelzang kicks off her fall album release tour on Beacon’s release date at Los Angeles’ Hot Shot Muffler, before heading across the Midwest and North East with stops in Milwaukee, New York, Boston, and others, with additional dates to be announced soon. Visit www.theanna.com for more information on all upcoming tour dates.
In conjunction with the release of “Icarus,” Vogelzang revealed the song’s official video via an in-depth conversation with Femme Riot. The video was written, directed, and shot by youth campers at The Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Los Angeles, a program that Vogelzang has been actively working with for several years. The Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls is a social justice non-profit dedicated to empowering girls through music. Vogelzang first got involved with the program in Madison, WI teaching voice and coaching bands, before continuing her work with the organization’s Los Angeles branch, where she teaches songwriting, guitar, voice, and coaches aspiring young musicians.
Each year, Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls attendees participate in the camp’s “Music Video Program,” where they review songs via a blind submission process and choose one to make a video for. 2019 campers selected Vogelzang’s “Icarus”– and alongside a team of female filmmakers brought their vision for the song to life. Vogelzang explains, “Knowing that my music connects with kids is a different kind of special. This was the third year I submitted, and it felt amazing to be chosen. Working with the campers was just… so rewarding. We shot all day, and they had totally come up with their own vision for the song, lyric by lyric. I absolutely love the direction they took with the video. I’m so proud of the amazing piece they created!”
An anthem for self-acceptance, “Icarus” proved to be the perfect inspiration for these young artists exploring their own creative expression. With a melodic punchiness that drives the song’s storyline, Vogelzang’s effortlessly vibrant vocals reveal an ease in knowing that at any given moment, where you’re at is where you’re meant to be. “We can spend so much of our lives looking outward – this song felt like it was showing up as a celebration of acceptance,” she says. “This is where you’re at, this is it, right now – why not celebrate it?”
Vogelzang recently released the first single and title track from Beacon, which was born from a place of searching – a theme found throughout Vogelzang’s life and career. Born in Boston, spending a decade in Madison, WI, and touring to every corner of the country in-between, Vogelzang has built her community from coast to coast, with her home on her fingertips, her music peppered with flavors of nostalgia and perpetual motion. After spending the last decade in Madison, WI, Vogelzang made the move to Los Angeles, where she has co-founded LA’s weekly songwriting group, “Song Salon,” with Adam Levy. This collective became the foundation of her journey into the West Coast’s music scene, and shortly after its formation, Vogelzang became pregnant with her first child. It was with this new sense of community in Los Angeles and the news of her pregnancy that Vogelzang decided to record an album throughout the deeply transitional phase, despite – and because of – the uncertainty of what was on the other side.
This feeling of living within a transient physical state while experiencing life in a new place was the origin and inspiration for the album. Beacon was co-produced by Tyler Chester (Andrew Bird, Joan Baez) and found the pulse of the West Coast infused into the songs. “These songs have California in their blood. All of them written in this new city, on a new journey, climate, home, community. They were written written to process these huge transitions – transitions of place, and into motherhood,” Vogelzang states. Beacon is Vogelzang’s seventh studio release.
