DEBUT ALBUM FROM TRUE AUGUST

True August’s artistry is an imaginative amalgamation of varying techniques, mediums, processes, and arrangements. With a keen interest in the pop genre and knowledge of its history in music, True August has crafted a body of work that incorporates historically pop styles and elements with a contemporary essence and experimental aura.

True August, like most musicians, discovered his love of music and the ways in which humans connect through this artistic medium at a very young age. Fostering this interest his entire life, it wasn’t until college that he dove in head first and released his debut EP, True August, on a whim to unexpected praise.

In the year before graduating college during covid, True August used the downtime to take a deep dive into production, songwriting, and pop music; the result is his new album, Breathing Room. These ten songs combine meticulously crafted arrangements, analog gear, and traditional songwriting with more contemporary, experimental elements like vocal manipulation and sampling. The album carves out a niche for a different brand of pop music that’s in conversation with sounds and aesthetics in pop music today, yet still blends old-school elements that are beloved by fans of pop.

With its makeshift beginnings in my senior year dorm room, Breathing Room has been in the works for over two years. Every single cover so far has loosely resembled a micrograph, a picture of a microscope lens, and this is no mistake. The micrographs convey the colors and textures of different locations in the human body, but also the diversity of emotion that exists within a single person. With an album that travels through a variety of musical influences, and more importantly moods, these images help underline the varied nature of Breathing Room’s songwriting. Just as micrographs are snapshots of a greater system in the body, the songs on this album are close-ups of fleeting, abstract emotions— everything from reflections about parking lot sleep paralysis to poison pen songs on growing apart. – True August

Credits:
Composer/lyricist/producer/arranger/rec engineer:True August Waaktaar-Savoy
Peformers: True August Waaktaar-Savoy, Pål Waaktaar-Savoy
Mix: Matias Tellez
Mastering: Joe Lambert
Press pics: Stian Andersen