29 June 2023 - 0 Comments

Tom Lark AKA Shannon Fowler has announced dates for an album release tour. The shows celebrate the release of Brave Star, which was released on June 9, 2023.

The Brave Star album release tour will hit Tauranga, Tāmaki Makaurau, and Te Whanganui-a-Tara this August (full details below), with an Ōtautahi show TBA.

The record features the album focus track Brave Star and first single Radio Blaster as well as second single Live Wires, which has just been announced as a Top 20 nominee for the APRA Silver Scroll Award.

APRA members can vote for their Top 5 Silver Scroll nominees until Monday 24 July at this link: https://bit.ly/silver-scroll-voting-poll-ss23

Brave Star is the first new musical material from Tom Lark after a seven-year hiatus, and the debut full-length album from the Ōtautahi-born, Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist.

The album debuted at #6 on the Top NZ Album Charts and #2 on the IMNZ Album Chart, with Live Wires and Brave Star featuring as 'Hit Picks' on the SRN Chart.

The album has been similarly well-received by critics:

"Brave Star is an album adrift on a sea of memory bliss, cleverly produced and like a sonic mood-piece. It's an album which gives dream pop a very good name." – Graham Reid, Elsewhere / The Listener

"Brave Star is the work of a well-rounded songwriter, as comfortable in the pop realm as he is crafting country-inflected folk-rock tunes, casual and confessional in equal measure." – Tony Stamp, RNZ The Sampler

Brave Star follows two eponymous Tom Lark EPs, which were released in 2011 and 2015 respectively. Those early tunes found a home locally on the Student Radio Network, and abroad on Australian radio station Triple J – where Something To Tell You reached #1 Most Played.

Following this success Fowler chose to set aside the Tom Lark moniker for a period, dipping his toes in the warm waters of pop music and releasing a series of bangers under the Shannon Matthew Vanya pseudonym – as well as producing for a number of other artists, including Merk, Randa and A.C. Freazy.

With Tom Lark's Brave Star Fowler returns to his first love, which turns out to be making sunburnt psychedelic folk fit for sensitive cowboys to meander and muse to.

Brave Star is out through Winegum Records and available now via Bandcamp.

WINEGUM RECORDS & STRANGE NEWS PRESENT
The Tom Lark Brave Star album release tour

Fri 4 August – Jam Factory, Tauranga (solo)
Sat 5 August – Whammy Bar, Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland
Fri 25 August – Moon, Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington

Tickets available now from winegumrecords.com

Photo Credit: Lukas Thielmann

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