KIMBRA

Don't miss KIMBRA with special guest Empress Of as she performs live at In The Venue.

Kimbra is touring in support of her new album The Golden Echo, which will be released on August 19^th via Warner Bros. Records. Her celebratory new track, ‘Miracle,’ debuted yesterday. Produced by Kimbra and Rich Costey, it features contributions from acclaimed bassist Thundercat, Daniel Johns (Silverchair) and legendary drummer John JR Robinson (Michael Jackson, Daft Punk). The album is available for pre-order from all participating retailers. Those who pre-order will receive three instant downloads of the album tracks “90s Music,” “Love In High Places” and “Nobody But You.”

The ultimate modern pop record, The Golden Echo is ambitious, sophisticated, and complex, just like its creator. The New Zealand-born singer and songwriter wrote the songs in her bedroom studio on a farm in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, where she was surrounded by sheep and lambs owned by her landlady. A riot of genres, from Prince-like funk, to sing-songy electro-pop, to eerie space-age hip-hop, The Golden Echo was produced by Kimbra alongside Rich Costey (Foster The People, Interpol, Muse), and features further contributions from R&B singer Bilal to Queens Of The Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman, as well as famed string arranger Van Dyke Parks.

The Golden Echo is Kimbra's second album. Her 2011 debut, Vows, bowed at No. 14 on the Billboard Top 200 and was certified platinum in Australia and New Zealand. Kimbra exploded into the public consciousness that same year with "Somebody That I Used To Know," a duet with Gotye that earned her Grammy Awards for "Record of the Year" and "Best Pop Duo/Group Performance." The song topped Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 2012 and was the best-selling song of that year in the U.S. It has sold more than 13 million copies. 

EMPRESS OF

Lorely Rodriguez, the singular mind behind Empress Of, is a 23-year-old songwriter and producer living Brooklyn, NY.  In the early part of 2012, she began a personal songwriting exercise, writing and recording a daily series of one-minute ideas. Completing each of these snippets in several hours apiece, she eventually amassed a catalog of about fifty. Selections from this series were eventually uploaded to YouTube anonymously, each paired with a blank color swatch. The fruits of this project, deemed a series of "colorminutes", were released on cassette via the Japanese record label, Big Love, and effectively served as the launch of Empress Of.

A debut seven-inch single featuring two more fully-formed recordings, "Don't Tell Me", the hyper-emotional and affecting ballad, and  "Champagne", a far more frantic but no less beautiful song, was released later that year by No Recordings. The following spring, she continued forward with an EP released via Terrible Records. The four-song EP features two songs in English, and two in Lorely's native tongue, Spanish. An immediately apparently common thread with the songs on this EP is the skillful straddling of highly complex and almost bizarre choices Lorely makes with her songwriting, arrangement, and melodies, while retaining an undeniable penchant for pure pop sensibilities and accessibility. This makes for a thrilling and distinctive end product; an amalgamation of fragmented influences spanning the traditional Honduran music she grew up with and some of her more modern inspirations: Liz Fraser, Antennae, and Broadcast. 

In the latter half of 2013, following domestic and international touring stints, her most ambitious recording to date, "Realize You"  was self-released online to critical acclaim. Illustrating great progress in production and an even more broad swath of songwriting chops, incorporating witty lyricism and soaring melodies, this is just a hint of what remains in store for the future. Throughout 2014, Lorely has been hard at work on her debut album, which will be released in early 2015 by XL Recordings and Terrible Records.