Product Description
RELEASE DATE: June 23rd 2023
Pop/rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. is the lead & rhythm guitarist
and songwriting member of the GRAMMY® and BRIT Awards-winning band The Strokes. He
has released 4 solo albums to date, most recently the acclaimed “Francis Trouble” in 2018
which spawned the radio single “Far Away Truths”. In the 4 years, since then, The Strokes
released their US Top 10 charting GRAMMY® nominated rock record “The New Abnormal”
and toured the world extensively. Albert also began the songwriting process for his 5th solo
album “Melodies on Hiatus”, a 19-track album, crafted in a most experimental style. Albert
teamed up with his writing partner, Canadian songwriter, and poet Simon Wilcox (whom he
never met during the process) and had lengthy conversations via the telephone; Simon
would jot down notes from Albert’s stream of consciousness, and draft the lyrics on her
typewriter, and drop them into his letterbox! Albert then added the lyrics to the melodies he
had already crafted. The songwriting process became a long distant “anonymous love affair
of ideas & lyrics.” The album covers themes of childhood, surviving adolescence, adulthood,
vulnerability, fame, relationship with self and others, and is Albert’s “deconstructed broken
down ego reaction” to “Francis Trouble.” The album also features songs with GoldLink, Matt
Helders (of the Arctic Monkeys), Steve Stevens and Rainsford, and was mixed by Tony Hoffer
(known for his work with Beck, Air, M83, The Kooks, Fitz and the Tantrums, Metric, Chromeo,
etc.) and mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters (Paramore, Spoon, Tame Impala,
Jimmy Eat World, Peanut Butter Wolfe).
The album cover art is a license of Wassily Kandinsky’s famous painting “Seven Circles,”
which is an abstract and spiritual expression of color and shape on canvas, “the fusion of the
two greatest opposites, that of the concentric and of the eccentric in a single form and in
equilibrium. This painting is subjective and relies on the infinite possibilities of interpretation
of the circle to create a sense of spiritual and emotional harmony for the viewer” much like
the songs on this album!
Albert now prepares to announce and launch the album pre-order on Tuesday April 4, with
the release of the instant grat track and lead single “100-99 feat. GoldLink”; which gives fans
a taste of the aural delights to expect. Albert describes the song as a reflection of “Realizing
you’ll never be a child again, but you’ll always feel like one.”
