Today, Andrew Combs announced his new album Ideal Man will be released on September 20 via New West Records. The 11-song set was produced by Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Benjamin Booker) and features Combs’ longtime collaborators, Drummer Dom Billet and guitarist/keyboardist/bassist Jerry Bernhardt.
Watch the video for the first single “Stars Of Longing” via YouTube:
https://youtu.be/O3f2E_dXP00
FLOOD Magazine called the song “…a shimmering slab of groovy psychedelic soul.”
A Dallas native, Combs has called Nashville home since 2006, but when it came time to record Ideal Man, he opted for a change, heading to Sam Cohen’s Jupiter Recordings in Brooklyn. “One of the things I really admired about Sam is that he wants to capture a moment,” says Combs. “In the past, I’ve tended to pursue a studio sound that was really polished and clean, but I wanted to do something different this time, and I knew that working with Sam would lead to more of a loose, psychedelic, spaced-out vibe. We did everything live in the studio, even my vocals, and there’s a sense of immediacy and discovery in those early takes that you can’t recreate.”
Combs worked with some of his favorite writers for the album, including Joe Henry, Dylan LeBlanc, Jeff Trott, and Kenny Childers, but the stories he tells here are deeply personal and remarkably vulnerable. The songwriting was partly inspired by his recent fascination with painting. Combs started painting when his wife was pregnant (they welcomed a daughter in 2017).
“It really changed the way that I write songs,” he reflects. “When I paint, I might start with a very abstract idea or maybe even just a feeling, but from there I’ll paint and scrape and paint and erase and keep on painting until something starts to take shape. I just let nature play out.” Enamored with the fresh creative avenues that painting opened up for him, Combs applied the same approach to his music, beginning songs with an emotion rather than a concept and treating lyrical and melodic ideas as raw material that could be added to or layered over at any point. When he heard the finished recordings, the songs in turn suggested entire canvases in his mind, and Combs began work on a series of oil paintings designed to accompany each track on the album. He plans on presenting the album and the paintings together in a gallery show surrounding the album release.
Andrew Combs Ideal Man Track Listing:
1) Stars Of Longing
2) Ideal Man
3) Like A Feather
4) Save Somebody Else
5) Hide And Seek
6) Dry Eyes
7) Firestarter
8) Shipwreck Man
9) Born Without A Clue
10) The Stone
11) Golden
