[Cover photo credit to Seannie Bryan]
Los Angeles based musician A.O. Gerber has released the hopeful new track “Looking for the Right Things”, which was co-produced by Madeline Kenney has arrived through Father/Daughter Records (US) & Hand In Hive (UK). Accompanying the track is is a video directed by Erik Schute that suggests “dreamy catharsis” through the “freeing physical movements”. She has also announced a run of West Coast tour dates supporting Juana Molina.
Speaking on the track, A.O. Gerber says:
I wrote this song in 2017 in a moment of exasperation, when my desire to show up as my honest self and let someone else show up as theirs felt impossibly difficult. That refrain, “Looking for the right things,” was a sort of anxious plea — this looping frustration over the distance between intention and reality, the desire for closeness and the complexity of actually allowing it. We tried to record this song for my first record and we couldn’t get the production right (irony!). As the years went on, I tried again and again to re-work it, and the repetition of that refrain started taking on new meaning. There’s anxiety in it, yes, but there’s also gentleness, self-nurturance, and even some hope — this feeling that it’s worth it to stay open, stay tender, stay messy.
She adds regarding the video:
There’s a bit of subtle humor in this video that I like — this song is about how frustratingly difficult human connection can be, but this video is me trapped in my dusty mind, flinging myself around in the void alone, which isn’t too far off from the truth of what happens when I get stuck in my own head trying to figure out who and how I should be in the world. There’s a sort of self-involvedness to that kind of perfectionism that I feel like this video (which was produced lovingly by Yellow House Sessions and directed/edited by Erik Shute) captures really well.
Gerber’s debut LP Another Place To Need (2020) saw Gerber collaborate with much of her musical community in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, including Sasami, Madeline Kenney, Marina Allen and Noah Weinman (Runnner).
LIVE DATES:
5/3 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern*
5/4 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios*
5/6 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent*
5/7 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour*
5/13 – The Great Escape Festival, Brighton, UK:
-The Line of Best Fit Stage @ One Church
-Hand In Hive x Sub Pop Publishing stage @ The Mucky Duck
*supporting Juana Molina
