Press Release: Bad Desire (Full EP)

Streaming links for each track:

• Grand Canyon

• Flowers

• Plan It Out

• Stops With Me (PRE-RELEASE / PRIVATE - DO NOT SHARE)

Randle Browning releases debut EP Bad Desire, a deeply-felt Meditation on longing and connection

Please feel free to use this copy in its entirety or to adapt it for press and promotional material. To get direct quotes or to alter a direct quotation below, please contact the artist directly at browning.randle@gmail.com. Credit album art to Des Magness.

January 19, 2024 — Today Randle Browning releases her four-song debut EP, Bad Desire. The EP showcases deeply-felt, minimally-processed vocals, perceptive lyricism, creative instrumentation, and themes of longing and connection. It follows a release cycle that started in the fall, including three single releases: “Flowers,” “Grand Canyon,” and “Plan It Out.”  

Bad Desire is Browning’s debut EP, after her indie folk/bedroom pop single “Need This” in 2022. “When I wrote the songs on this EP I was adjusting to big changes, including becoming a mother and seeing many of my closest friends move away from New York City, where I live,” Browning says. “It was a time when I had to think about what I wanted in my life. Ultimately these songs are about desire, in many different forms.”

The singles on this project span from straightforward indie pop rock (“Flowers”), to exuberant singer-songwriter powerhouse (“Grand Canyon”), to exposed folk pop ballad (“Plan It Out”), but they all feature Browning’s evocative vocal performance, which critics have called “mesmerizingly fragile.” Despite their breadth in genre, these songs are tied together by that grounded songwriting. “I wrote all of these songs first with just my voice and the acoustic guitar,” Browning says. Browning has said the songwriting can be interpreted as largely autobiographical. 

“Grand Canyon,” the lead track on the EP, is a spirited and exuberant song with deep grooves and a lush layering of found sound. It explores the sometimes contradictory longing for a place that feels like home. “When we went into production, I wanted to make a song that was like a jam band party for people who typically feel left out of that scene,” Browning says. “I wanted a cacophonous sound that captured the feeling of a crowded room, but still plenty of time to take it all in.” The track features atmospheric sound samples, percussive and driving guitar, a soulful bassline, and a billowing piano part played by Aviv Gilad. Press for this track dubbed it “another gem,” “an indie folk/americana treasure,” and a “a gentle psych folk tapestry…that transcends mere hype.”

The lead single off the EP, “Flowers,” offers more straightforward indie rock, with a tender and unvarnished vocal line, energetic instrumentation, and an improvisational background vocal performed by close friend and collaborator Noele Flowers, who produced the EP. “I wrote this song when I felt confused by my own feelings within a relationship, how I could be so devoted to a person but so resistant to the structures around that connection,” Browning says. The EP takes its title from this track, and exemplifies the longing that drives it: “I got a bad desire,” goes the lyric, “I want you closer.”

“Plan It Out” turns inward. “In this song I felt the most exposed, and I worked hard throughout the production, mixing, and mastering process to keep it that way,” Browning says, “This is a song about being afraid to go after what we want, and struggling to accept imperfection and risk.” “Plan It Out” features raw and present vocals and an experimental improvised/experimental cello part played by Nino Soberon.

The EP finishes out with “Stops With Me,” which is grounded by a driving train beat and showcases mournful, close vocals. “I wrote this song about the pitfalls and joys of being a mother and a daughter at the same time, and wanted it to have a haunted quality.” The song ruminates on what we pass on and what we can choose not to. It includes a hidden track featuring Browning’s now-four-year-old daughter.

Listeners will recognize a range of influences in Browning’s music, from indie pop rock artists like Julia Jacklin and Lucy Dacus, to indie folk (Erin Rae, Waxahatchee), to beloved singer-songwriters (Joni Mitchell, Patty Griffin), and even cult favorites like Cassandra Jenkins. 

“Bad Desire was a project driven by collaborations,” Browning says. Browning recorded the project in New York’s Hudson Valley, with close friend and collaborator Noele Flowers, who also produced the tracks. “Making music with Noele is a dream,” Browning says, “We know each other so well and there is real love and connection between us — that carries over into the music.” Jackson Hoffman of BAD drums on the project, while long-time collaborator Tim Kim and former bandmate Nicole Yentzer play bass. Pianist Aviv Gilad and cellist Nino Soberon also contribute.

This project is held together by its fidelity to honest feeling, and its probing exploration of complicated, often conflicting dynamics within close relationships. It’s about finding family and working to create a life together, despite how hard it can be sometimes. “When my daughter was born in 2019,” Browning says, “it snapped my art into a new focus. I wanted her to see me do the work I want to and to feel she can do the same.”

Browning has been living and making music in New York City since 2016, and now she is breaking out as an independent solo artist in her own right. She will promote the release this fall and winter with shows across New York City.

For photos and further promotional material: www.randlebrowning.com/press-kit

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Contact: browning.randle@gmail.com

Downloadable version of this press release here