1 in 5 individuals will be affected by a mental health disorder in their lifetime, yet only 25% of those diagnosed feel others are compassionate or understanding toward their condition. The need to build awareness around mental health has never been as crucial as it is today.
Sound Mind will take place at Rough Trade NYC and feature performances by Langhorne Slim, Torres, Aparna Nancherla, and Rosie Carney - these performers represent a few outspoken voices advocating for the cause. Much like Farm Aid has done for food and family farmers, our mission is to catalyze social change on mental health, reducing stigma with the power of music. The movement begins on May 13, 2019 at Rough Trade NYC, in partnership with the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City.
Must be 21 & Over to attend Sound Mind
As the phenomena of instant connection and the need for constant self-improvement further implant their tendrils into our culture, the ability to truly connect with each other and ourselves has begun to fade. As we all reach for our smartphones to gaze upon the manufactured perfection of the lives of those we admire, we lose sight of what makes our own lives important.
Nashville’s Langhorne Slim interlaces this theme throughout his new album. “Everyone's searchin' for something better around every corner, but it's already right here,” Langhorne says. “We're all born whole - through livin' we fall apart...”
The songs on Langhorne Slim’s newest album, Lost At Last Vol. 1, out November 10, 2017, challenge the idea of social rigidity: the attitude that there’s a “correct” way for us to live and a side we should be on. He urges the world to see through the idea that by following that path and focusing only on fitting the mold, one will have lived a good life. He re-interprets the sound of the free-spirited yet vulnerable everyman heard on 2015’s The Spirit Moves and brings forth anew the call for us to abandon “the fold” and re-connect with ourselves and each other.
Langhorne Slim is no stranger to the world of popular culture and commercial success. Lost At Last Vol. 1 is his sixth full-length album; throughout his career he has been defined by reflective songwriting and passionate delivery. Slim’s last album cycle alone garnered him his third appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show, as well as a feature on CBS Saturday Morning, and the highest charting debut of his career. O’Brien, a personal fan of Slim stated, “After one listen, I became an instant, almost obsessive fan.” Slim has consistently toured on his own, and has appeared on extensive worldwide runs throughout his career with artists such as The Lumineers, The Avett Brothers, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Gregory Alan Isakov, Josh Ritter, The Devil Makes Three, Sara Watkins, and more. He’s also appeared on many festival stages, such as Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, Outside Lands, Lollapalooza, and the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
Slim reflects truths that we may or may not want to admit; in “Life is Confusing”, he muses that “life is confusing, and people are insane”. He stands resolute in the face of trial: “…you could break my heart, but you’ll never break me,” he sings on “Never Break”. He calls upon the listener during this time fraught with challenges to unplug from the trajectory our culture has deemed is “right” and find strength in our own vulnerability, in our own instincts. “We look to our phones, drugs, sex whatever to find ourselves when it's already right here,” Slim says. These songs join in the rallying call for the wild ones in us all.
Rosie Carney is a British singer-songwriter originally from Hampshire UK, now living in Donegal, Ireland. Her folky songs have the ability to get straight to your heart within a couple of bars! Her inspiration comes, in part, from the beautiful landscape surrounding her home on the stunning Rosguil peninsula and from her ability to listen to people’s stories. Her singing has taken her to New York and Los Angeles, Stateside, and she has performed in London and Dublin; she has been a regular on the Belfast music scene and has played at Other Voices in Derry/Londonderry. Her music has had air-time on BBC Radio Ulster, as well as her local station, Highland Radio, in Donegal.
TORRES knows the darkness. The Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter otherwise known as Mackenzie Scott waits until anything—an idea, an emotion, a memory—gnaws at her, tearing at her fingers and throat until she releases it in song. Her husky voice strains against its human biological constraints like a wild-eyed horse, whispering desperately "Don't give up on me just yet" on one end and yowling about jealousy with unnerving intensity on the other. Following her self-titled debut in 2013, TORRES pushes herself to even noisier extremes on Sprinter, a punishing self-examination of epic spiritual and musical proportions.
A keen awareness of Scott's place in her family and in the world suffuses Sprinter, contributing to themes of alienation throughout. "You're just a firstborn feeling left behind," she sings on the ominously brewing "Son, You Are No Island," which references one of Scott's influences on this record: English poet John Donne's 1624 poem Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Scott's tortured wailing circles spirals downward around itself, reflecting in a dark mirror the feelings of an adopted child. "Whether it be abandonment, or fear of rejection, or perhaps inability to connect with people, comes down to that fear of isolation, of not being good enough," says Scott. "Those are themes that have cropped up in my personal life, in my writing.”
"Scott escaped the confines of her churning mind in order to find herself by recording Sprinter in the market town of Bridport in Dorset, England with co-producer Rob Ellis; and then at the Bristol studio of Portishead's Adrian Utley. With his guitar riffs and synthesizers lingering in the background like a lowland mist and PJ Harvey's Robert Ellis and Ian Olliver on rhythm—the two fortuitously reuniting 23 years after the release of Dry, and in Scott's 23rd year of living—she crafted a "space cowboy" record. "That's as simply as I can say it," says Scott, who cites inspirations as diverse as Funkadelic and Nirvana, Ray Bradbury and Joan Didion. I wanted something that very clearly stemmed from my Southern conservative roots but that sounded futuristic and space-y at the same time."
Sound Mind Live
Mental Health Awareness Concert
