Lush and absolutely massive sounding, “Break Apart” is the work of an artist who has undergone radical change. After all, when Tenderfoot originally appeared in the KEXP studios in June of 2014 the Seattle project was largely a solo vehicle for queer singer and guitarist Adam Kendall Woods, who despite employing outside musicians kept tunes like the Kath Bloom-inspired “Do It My Love” achingly spare and intimate.
Fast forward the four years in which Woods opted to concentrate on artistic expression beyond music, and the Tenderfoot documented on the Break Apart album is a fully constituted quartet, one fleshing out their acoustic warmth with expansive textures: chiming electric guitar, mournful cello, swirling keys, and mountain-climbing drums and percussion. As the gripping title cut lays out, the result is a brand of pastoral dream rock that’s gloriously melancholic as it patiently ripples across the sky and out towards the horizon. Yet despite all these bold reinventions the one thing that hasn’t changed is Woods’ emotionally naked voice, which serves up equal portions of defeat and defiance, qualities further accentuated on the single’s accompanying video, a soul-bearing “psychological projection” self-directed by the singer-songwriter. Though details on Tenderfoot’s forthcoming spring tour are yet to be unveiled, they are scheduled to travel cross-country for a show at Brooklyn’s C’mon Everybody on March 16.
You can check out the video for “Break Apart” below.
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