You may recall last year, amidst quarantine and shutdowns and uncertainty, local indie pop singer-songwriter Bre Kennedy made the best of her time with a couple of great singles and videos, namely “Feel It All” and “Where Did Summer Go,” written and recorded through remote and unorthodox means, and reflective of the confusion, melancholy, bittersweet hope, and self-reflectiveness of 2020.
If you’ve been keeping up with our Spotify Playlist, you’ve probably noticed that Bre’s been even busier in 2021, kicking off the new year with a Hadley Kennary collaboration called “The Hardest Part,” before debuting a series of new solo tracks in recent months, ahead of a planned summer release of her new album, written and recorded throughout the pandemic. First came “Progress” back in April, an enchanting and cathartic check-in about letting go of preconceived notions in life in order to make progress; then, last month, a single and video called “Wilburn Street,” a lighter, more uplifting, and celebratory tune perfectly timed at a moment where life finally began to return to some normalcy.
For her latest single, out now, Kennedy returns with “Control,” which she describes as “a song about feeling powerless over what is happening in the world today.” Though it’s her third single from her forthcoming album, Bre explains “This was the first song I wrote in a zoom session over quarantine. I wrote it as an anthemic celebration of letting go of the things I can’t control in my life. After the last year we all experienced, I wanted to write a song that felt like you could scream/sing in your car after a long day.”
Written with Hadley Kennary, produced and mixed by Kyle Dreadon, engineered by Dreadon along with Collin Pastore and Jake Finch, and mastered by Emily Lazar, with musical contributions from Finch and Kennary, as well as Matt Koziol, Andrew Brown, Matthew S. Nelson, and Avery Bright, Kennedy once again tapped friends and frequent collaborators Jason Lee Denton and Aliegh Shields to produce a video for the track. In the typical style of Bre’s recent videos, the spot is cinematic and dream-like, depicting the singer bound by ropes and struggling to break free, observed by onlookers in the shadows who are also bound, before those same ropes become a tether to her medium of musical expression, in a perfect and creative visual representation of the tune.
Long one of our favorite local artists and one who’s seemed poised for greatness ever since the release of her 2019 EP Jealous of Birds and last year’s Twenty Something (which dropped just months before the pandemic), Bre Kennedy’s latest series of singles, and “Control” in particular, showcase even more range, resonance, and artistic growth, and leave us anticipating her next album as what’s sure to be one of the year’s absolute best!
Along with new music, Kennedy has also begun plotting out her return to stage throughout 2021, recently embarking on a leg of dates in support of Fitz and the Tantrums, and joining Bonnaroo‘s exciting Who Stage lineup for September! For a more intimate experience, you can also catch her supporting Maggie Rose Aug. 19 at Brooklyn Bowl (tickets here), and we can assume an album release show sometime this summer is almost a certainty.
For now, watch Bre Kennedy’s stunning new video for “Control” below, and stream her latest singles on your platform of choice!
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