After 10 years and 3 LPs, Fourth Of July singer/songwriter Brendan Hangauer left his band, brothers and hometown of Lawrence, Kansas for the golden promise of the Golden State. Settling in Oakland, he teamed up with Jason Quever of Papercuts to record his first solo album as Empty Moon, titled “The Shark”.
A carousel of grainy, intimate slides from desert drives, Antonioni films, clamorous new surroundings and the oh-so-close ocean, “The Shark” finds a songwriter known for his casual candor watching his past slip away while the present scatters into place.
“I think I see some light at the end of the tunnel,” Hangauer begins the Amber-visioned first single, “75 degrees” – a paean to the mystifying tendency of nice weather to turn mundane moments into snapshots of bliss and treasured memories into trailing vapors. Displaced and rediscovered selves continue threading through “The Shark”, with their ambient impressions clearly captured: “A million reasons you wanted to move/ said you wouldn’t miss the Seasons/ but now you do,” he concludes on album highlight “Dear Life”.
Produced with an audiophile’s lushness by Quever and featuring the vocals of former bandmate Adrianne Verhoeven (The Anniversary, Dri, Extra Classic), Empty Moon’s “The Shark” is the work of a songwriter doubling down on what he does best: turning a personal travelogue into a shared soundtrack.
After 5 years in Oakland Hangauer has made the move back to his home town of Kansas City. Continuing and deepening the lyrical candor from his boozy college years fronting Lawrence’s Fourth of July, and the westward drift and disillusionment of his Empty Moon debut “The Shark”, his sophomore LP “The Empty Moon Story” is one turtlenecked man’s attempt to see it and tell it straight while the world around him goes off the deep end. Hangauer has teamed up with Quevers again to record “The Empty Moon Story” in Los Angeles and features Jason on guitar, bass and keys and Brian “Bronco” Costello on drums. Mastered by Carl Staff.
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