GABRIEL KAHANE Talks Post-Apocalyptic Picnics And Hollywood Steakhouses” w/ NPR Morning Edition and The Wall Street Journal
Reveals “Veda” (1 Pierce Dr.) with Vogue Today!
The Ambassador Streaming In Full w/ NPR First Listen,
Out June 3 via Sony Music Masterworks
Cinematic “Bradbury” (304 Broadway) Video Out Now
Catch Him Live On Tour This Spring
6/3: Los Angeles, CA @ The Hotel Cafe
6/5: New York, NY @ Rockwood Music Hall
6/6: Brooklyn, NY @ Littlefield
6/7: Boston, MA @ Cafe 939
6/8: Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
6/9: Vienna, VA @ Jammin’ Java
6/10: Toronto, ON @ The Drake Hotel
6/13: Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern
6/14: Minneapolis, MN @ Icehouse
6/17: Denver, CO @ The Soiled Dove Underground
6/20: San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
6/22: Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall
6/23: Vancouver, BC @ The Media Club
6/24: Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
6/25: Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
“With its shades of Sufjan Stevens and Simon and Garfunkel, it’s singer-songwriter meets pop, but with the tools of a classical composer.” – The Wall Street Journal
” …the ethereal textures that Kahane creates are fabulous.” – NPR
“A Timeless Vision Of Los Angeles” – WNYC
Photo: Axel Dupeux for The Wall Street Journal
Gabriel Kahane’s critically acclaimed new album The Ambassador draws its inspiration from a multitude of sources to tell intimate, human stories against the backdrop of Los Angeles architecture and popular culture. Released on June 3 via Sony Music Masterworks, The Ambassador is a collection of ten songs for ten buildings in Los Angeles. Fans can get an advance taste of the record with NPR’s First Listen, where The Ambassador is currently streaming in full through June 3rd! For more insight on the record, check out Gabriel’s interviews with NPR Morning Edition, The Wall Street Journal and Vogue out today.
The Ambassador was co-produced by Kahane and long-time collaborators Casey Foubert (Sufjan Stevens), Matt Johnson (St. Vincent), and Rob Moose (Bon Iver). It also features guest vocal appearances by Aoife O’Donovan, Holcombe Waller and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. The video for “Bradbury” (304 Broadway) ft Shara Worden premiered with Paste Magazine. A response to Blade Runner, which much of was shot at the Bradbury Building, the video is a cinematically stunning work of shadow art, directed by Chicago’s Manual Cinema. Watch the “Bradbury” (304 Broadway) video feat. Shara Worden HERE and below.
In keeping with The Ambassador’s all-encompassing City of Angels theme, Gabriel also recently unveiled The Ambassador Atlas– an interactive map of Los Angeles highlighting the ten locations that inspired each of the songs on the record. As he elaborates, “The Ambassador Atlas is intended as a companion to the eponymous album, which is itself an exploration of Los Angeles through the lens of ten street addresses scattered around the city.”
Kahane was born in Los Angeles but raised on the East Coast and in Northern California. He writes, “Starting in my late teens I began to spend more time in LA. I found myself chasing its soul— its aspiration, its spirit, its sadness— and wanted to express that. I’ve always had a preoccupation with buildings, and the relationships we form with them. So for this album, I made a list of street addresses that were interesting to me, and then began to explore different narrative approaches for each one: on the title track, I sing from the perspective of a doorman at the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel; in another, I take on the persona of James M. Cain’s iconic protagonist, Mildred Pierce. On ‘Empire Liquor Mart,’ I sing from the perspective of Latasha Harlins, a fifteen-year-old African-American girl shot to death in 1991, one year before the LA Riots. It is my hope that in this array of voices, something new about Los Angeles is expressed.”