Born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, acclaimed singer-songwriter and bluesman Jonah Tolchin returns to Hopewell Theater on Friday, July 29 for an album-release concert.
The album, Lava Lamp, releases Friday, July 15!
“I wanted to let go and cut loose with this album,” says Tolchin. “I wanted to explore new terrain without any kind of rules or restrictions.”
It’s that joyous sense of freedom and endless possibility that defines Lava Lamp, Tolchin’s bold and adventurous new collection and fourth studio album. His other albums include Fires for the Cold, Thousand Mile Night, and Clover Lane.
Built around a series of loose, live-in-the-studio performances, Lava Lamp is more sonically diverse than anything in Tolchin’s catalog, expanding on the folk-blues style he’s become known for to incorporate elements of indie rock and grunge fueled by gritty electric guitars and a muscular rhythm section.
“I was a pretty rebellious kid,” says Tolchin, “and I mostly listened to alternative rock and hip hop and punk growing up. Somewhere along the way, though, I feel like I lost that part of myself. These songs are my way of reclaiming it.”
Where Tolchin’s previous work had often been weighty and deeply introspective, the songs he found himself penning for Lava Lamp were more coy and irreverent, drawn from freewheeling, uninhibited, stream-of-consciousness writing sessions.
“I decided I was going to just let myself write without caring about what I’m ‘supposed’ to sound like or what anyone else would think,” says Tolchin. “I wanted to see what would happen if I started with a completely blank page.”
The album is a bridge between roots and rock, between youth and adulthood, between expectation and liberation.
Hear the album live at our theater when central Jersey’s own Jonah Tolchin comes to Hopewell on Friday, July 29. Get tickets here.
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