LIFTED FROM HIS FORTHCOMING NEW EP ‘CONCRETE’, OUT MAY 26TH VIA THEORY RECORDS
LONDON SHOW ST PANCRAS OLD CHURCH JULY 28TH SOLD OUT
“Incredible vocal, it is jam-packed with soul… He can push this voice into a pop realm and make some really, really big tracks and potentially a big name for himself… This new one right here is the first step towards that…”
JACK SAUNDERS, BBC RADIO 1
“Soul Pioneer” WONDERLAND
“VC Pines, something very special going on here” HUW STEPHENS, BBC RADIO 1
“Songs that speak of self-doubt and self-reliance in a constantly fluctuating world, it’s perfect for these anxiety inducing times” CLASH
““Smoke Without Fire”, a soulful blast of sax, squidgy synths and an especially groovy guitar line redolent of the one on “Use Me” by Bill Withers. The track comes from his forthcoming EP, Concrete, which you should definitely keep an eye out for.” THE INDEPENDENT
“Alongside a seven-piece band – The Violet Collective, VC Pines delivers deep organ drones and trills to provide the dark underbelly for this gritty alt-soul avenue, sugar-coated by seventies-esque trumpet and trombone.”
NOTION
“His tunes are huge, emotional stories that have the power to both devastate and reassure”
DORK MAGAZINE
Having recently returned to share his new single ‘See You Soon‘ – a collaboration with Bad Sounds – which earned him huge support from the likes of The Independent, NOTION, Wordplay Magazine, the Official Charts, and landed on Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist, VC Pines has now returned to share the official video for his newest cut.
Lifted from his upcoming new EP ‘Concrete‘, a release that was written and produced during lockdown, and created by Apollo Films with director Adrian Lee at the helm, the new visuals for ‘See You Soon’ continue the isolationist trend he has looked to inspire on this new collection. Channeling the lonely and confined image that so many of us have experienced over the last year, this new video perfectly encapsulates the attitude and vigour we can expect on his next EP.
Adding about the new video, he said, “‘See You Soon’ as a song is about the various changes you see in people throughout the night and the different levels of emotions involved, especially at an after party. So with the video we wanted to convey mixed emotions within one person, using mirrors to reflect this. The different mirror shots portray feelings of boredom, loneliness, happiness, anxiousness and the cheekiness of ‘the devil on your shoulder’. And then towards the end of the video there’s a change in lighting to mark the end of the night when anxiety hits and you know you should have gone home hours ago, mixed in with mirror shots of other feelings begging you to stay…”
‘See You Soon’ follows on from the highly-praised single ‘Smoke Without Fire‘, which was premiered by Jack Saunders’ on his BBC Radio 1 show, and supported by online countless tastemakers including Wonderland, The Independent, Under The Radar and SPIN, as well as landing spots on Spotify’s New Music Friday UK and The Other List, alongside his Mahogany@Home and COVERS session of Lionel Ritchie’s iconic track ‘Hello‘.
‘Concrete’ EP Tracklist:
Concrete
Smoke Without Fire
See You Soon
Compared To Someone Else
PRE-ORDER/PRE-SAVE CONCRETE HERE
VC Pines will be making his live return on Wednesday 28th July for a sold-out show at St Pancras Old Church, London.
Speaking about the upcoming show he gave this insight, “I knew I wanted to do an EP launch show to celebrate ‘Concrete’ (just like we all would have been able to do a year and a half ago without question) but there’s still a bit of uncertainty and all that. My team and I have been looking at some weird and wonderful places that could be adapted to any sudden changes but also maintain that intimate feeling and so we found St Pancras Old Church! I’m desperate to showcase the new tunes for the first time and finally play live to you all again. The intimacy of this venue will provide a unique experience for us all and I think the tunes are going to sound beaut in there. Hope you can make it. VC x”
Born and raised in London, Mercer is possessed with an uncanny ability to transport his listeners to completely new territory. On his new EP, ‘Concrete’, he leads you through a labyrinth of side-streets, dive bars and late-night haunts, introducing you to a whole host of characters along the way – Crooning over beats and brass that meander under street-lamps and through fog, searching for something.
Mercer describes the songs on Concrete as “purple” in colour; he has synaesthesia, one of the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with aged 17. It’s a condition that makes Mercer better equipped than most to delve into those themes of nostalgia, given how it can cause sudden sensations of déjà vu. “I thought I was going mad,| he says, of the period before his diagnosis, when he was studying performance at a local college. “I’d have blackouts, then really strong nostalgic episodes.” It’s how he landed on the ‘Pines’ in his artist’s name. “My parents went to New Hampshire when I was a kid, where those big pines are. And when I started having seizures, I kept remembering those trees.”
His latest material is a showcase for many of Mercer’s talents, not least among them his extraordinary voice. It’s one capable of filling stadiums and festival fields, as he showed with his previous band supporting the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Blondie, Patti Smith and Kings Of Leon. While still a powerhouse vocalist, he now offers yearning melodies, beautiful cadence, and a melancholy croon redolent of Grammy-winning artist Brittany Howard.
Fans will recognise Mercer’s favoured themes of romance, confusion and loneliness from 2020’s VC Pines EP, the critically lauded ‘Skully’, which included the sublime single ‘Bluebirds’. Inspired by the poem of the same name by Charles Bukowski, the song saw Mercer attempting to shake off the trappings of modern life in order to return to the best version of himself. Meanwhile ‘Cracks’, which has more than a quarter of a million streams on Spotify, dealt with the fallout from a relationship grown toxic with unspoken resentment. Concrete is an ambitious step up from that impressive debut; the latest VC Pines work is a project that lives and breathes. As Mercer puts it: “These songs are about experiences, hedonism, and the things we learn from.”
