Paul Bergmann's 'Romantic Thoughts' EP Out October 2

Courtesy Riot Act Media

Paul Bergmann is set to release his new EP, Romantic Thoughts on October 2 via Fairfaix Recordings.Romantic Thoughts is the follow up to Paul Bergmann's critically acclaimed 7" featuring "Old Dream" / "Summer's End" available now digitally via iTunes. Paul Bergmann's sound has been compared to Nick Cave, early Johnny Cash, and Leonard Cohen. Romantic Thoughts features Nick Waterhouse’s co-production with Kevin Augunas on the lead single, and a duet with Warpaint’s Emily Kokal on “Wishing Song,” which is streaming now at Noisey. Paul Bergmann told Noisey, “Wishing Song" is one of the most earnest songs I've ever written." He adds,  "It evokes a sense of longing in me that is very plain and truthful.  It's also a clear nod at Woody Guthrie, who got me out of a really dark time a few years ago.  While I was working on my “Romantic Thoughts” EP I ran into Emily [from Warpaint] at a party. After hanging out 'til 4AM, we drunkenly made a pact to record a song together. I immediately thought of “Wishing Song" and knew it would fit her like a glove.” 

Paul Bergmann, a Los Angeles-based folk craftsman grew up in small-town seclusion, nestled in the rolling uplands of Western Massachusetts. Isolated from an active youth music scene, his sonic roots descended from his parent’s canon of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Gordon Lightfoot. Recognized early on for his vocal potential, Bergmann’s childhood was often spent shuffled between voice lessons, choirs, musicals, and operas, polishing his vocal chords to have the sheen of facile, glassy, grace still audible today. Bergmann enjoyed singing, but consistently tired of channeling it into such formal products. 

It was not until the end of college that his fingers finally wrapped themselves around the neck of a guitar. Instantly hooked, the instrument became more like a saw-horse, for Bergmann, than anything else - a workbench upon which he spent days and nights hammering away at his first attempts at folk songs.

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The rest has been constant craftwork, with Bergmann sanding and staining his musical style into various projects, each with its own architectural integrity.“Eekis” was born after meeting drummer Laura Doolin in 2012. Like raw driftwood, the band scoured itself into country, garage-style ruckus informed by such duos as the Cramps and the White Stripes. After feeling the pull to “get back to the songs,” Bergmann reoriented, threw the needle on a constant soundtrack of Woody Guthrie, and wrote thirty folk songs in sixty days. It was after this “back to the basics” experiment that Bergmann truly found his sound, lacquering the results like deep rosewood onto his exports with the Fair Moans in 2013. Backed by a full ensemble, the album “1” was a ghostly collection of folk gone southern-gothic. With his soaring baritone and eerie whistle, Bergmann proved he could blow the breath back into a dead songbird. 

With clean, true purpose and burnished artistic vision, Bergmann channels himself now into partnership with Fairfax Recordings. Abiding by Bob Dylan’s folk philosophy of placing the integrity of the song before all else, Bergmann has been spending more time on the writing process than ever before.In his current creative efforts, he’ll tell you that he strives for honesty but not overexposure, vulnerability but not weakness, straightforwardness but not simplicity.He takes inspiration from the natural side of Los Angeles: the beach, the woods, and the outdoors - as well as a near constant stream of Neil Young’s On the Beach.       

Fittingly, his last 7” (“Old Dream” b/w “Summer’s End”) was recorded in Fairfax’s “Studio A,” - the very same room where Neil Young himself tracked After the Gold Rush when the studio was known as Sound City. Produced by Kevin Augunas and Nick Waterhouse and featuring the legendary Jimmie Haskell on strings, the tracks were released on May 2, 2015, and he is now set to release Romantic Thoughts on October 2. The five song EP is a dynamic body of sound in which each song showcases different sides of Bergmann’s personas.  Sit, listen, repeat.

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