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Rebecca Blasband premieres her new music video today on Blogcritics. Entitled “Love Is,” the song is from her forthcoming album, Here, slated to drop November 16.
Blasband has worn a variety of hats, including singer, songwriter, and screenwriter, as well as cast member on MTV’s The Real World: New York. She grew up in Pennsylvania and later attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for film, and studied theater with David Mamet, William H. Macy and The Atlantic Theater Company.
Blasband hooked up with Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, That Thing You Do), forming a band. The band began performing her original songs at clubs in downtown New York. Her first demo brought her to the attention of MTV/Bunim-Murray producers, who cast her in The Real World: New York, essentially the first Reality TV show.
Signing with Warner Chappell Music and Mercury Records, Blasband shared the stage with Squeeze, Aimee Mann, Matchbox 20, Chris Whitley, and Jon Bon Jovi. In 1997, she released Rapt, which received beau coup airplay. When Mercury Records ended, she produced sound design and music for television and film. Then she worked with Academy Award nominated producer Antonin Svoboda on The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich. After attending the Chris Difford/Buddy Holly Foundation’s songwriting retreat at Pennard House in England, she lived in London and Southern France for two years.
Blasband came back to the U.S. in 2017 to record Here, produced by Danny Uzilevsky, and recorded at Allegiant, in San Anselmo, California.
“Love Is” opens with an elegant piano, followed by the entrance of Blasband’s affluent voice. Infused with radiant textures of folk-pop, the melody oozes lingering wistful colors from delicate strings, imbuing the tune with gentle flavors.
The lyrics ponder the perplexing mystery and gorgeous enigma of love, an emotional concept that defies explanation other than “love is real.”
“Oh, love is real / Love is ageless like the sun / And oh, love is beautiful / And it’s only just begun / Don’t ask me why / Don’t sit and cry / The words are plain / I’ll try to explain / What love is.”
“Love Is” is beautifully wrought, measured and luminous on the one hand, while suffused with elegiac reflection on the other hand. Rebecca Blasband’s musing tones bathe the lyrics in tantalizing wisps of recollection and marvel.
Follow Rebecca Blasband on her official site, Facebook, and Instagram.
