New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Australian vocal powerhouse WILSN is thrilled to announce her debut album today, Those Days Are Over, out February 3 on Ivy League Records/ Universal MusicAustralia (Rolling Blackouts C. F., Hatchie). She also revealed a US headline tour (dates below), following her run with Allen Stone. A fusion of pop, soul, Motown and jazz both classic yet contemporary, WILSN's unbelievable voice & honeyed sound on the record are showcased on single & video debuted today on Under the Radar - "
Hurts So Bad" featuring Josh Teskey, lead singer of award-winning Melbourne blues-rock band The Teskey Brothers (even Chris Hemsworth is a fan).
Built from a trumpet melody by friend & acclaimed horn player Billy Aukstik (Mark Ronson, Erykah Badu, Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley), the heart-wrenching break-up song is accompanied by a video from Triana Hernandez, where the masterful performers are in full flight. "Right before Covid hit, I toured through
Europe and the UK with The Teskey Brothers," WILSN explains. "I was already a fan before this but seeing their show every night and occasionally getting up to sing with them in their set really solidified my love for the band. Josh is one of my favourite singers in the world and I feel super lucky he's singing with me on my debut record."
Studying at Melbourne, Australia's prestigious Victorian College of the Arts and playing shows there, WILSN - real name Shannon Busch - was soon noticed by international publishing juggernaut Pulse
Music Group (Kehlani, Yebba) / Native Tongue (Courtney Barnett, Aldous Harding) - even going on to play the Melbourne Grand Prix. She briefly moved to Nashville to work with GRAMMY-winning writers, which helped hone her craft for this full album.
"I was at a crossroads with my songwriting," Busch says. "Cos I have two big loves in singing. I have my kind of Alicia Keys, Sam Smith, Adele-style love for pop music. But then I also love jazz and Motown,
Amy Winehouse and
Aretha Franklin and that kind of music. So I was really torn - do I want to be pop or soul? On tour, I was ending my set with probably my souliest, bluesiest song and that one was really connecting with the crowd. In that moment I felt like I'd found what I was supposed to be doing and I immediately realized I needed a whole set of these songs."
The influence of soul and powerhouse vocal divas loom large over her debut album, Those Days Are Over. Songs like "If You Wanna Love Me," "
Tell Me" and "
Hurts So Bad" ooze with the sound, feel and all the emotion of classic soul. Yet while the album is steeped in the sounds of yesterday, WILSN and her partner and producer Stephen Charles (Blessed, Tyne
James Organ) took care to balance those classic elements with modern production techniques, leaning on Charles' background in hip hop production to amplify the grooves, dialing up the bottom end and keeping a modern excitement in the mix to make sure the record stood up sonically to contemporary releases. The result is a masterful work, at once timeless and of the now. The album will also be on Apple
Music Spatial Audio and vinyl via Vinyl Me Please.
Track Listing:
1. If You Wanna Love Me
2. You Know Better
3. Tell Me
4. Those Days Are Over
5. Me Or Her
6.
Hurts So Bad
7. Every Day and Every Night
8. I Love You So
9. Too
Sober For Words
10. Come On Over My Way
11. When Those Bright
Lights Go Down
12. Never Happen Again
13.
Hurts So Bad (Feat. Josh Teskey)
2023 US Tour Dates:
February 24 @ The Echo - Los Angeles, CA
February 25 @ Ventura Theatre -
Santa Barbara, CA
February 26 @ The Independent - San Francisco, CA
March 10 @ S.O.B.'s - New York, NY
March 11 @
Middle East Downstairs - Cambridge, MA
March 12 @ Union Stage - Washington DC
