Radnor & Lee to Release New Album GOLDEN STATE

On June 19 Radnor & Lee, the musical project of Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother, Happythankyoumoreplease, Hunters streaming now on Amazon, etc) and Ben Lee (Noise Addict), will release their anticipated sophomore album Golden State on Flower Moon Records, run by Azure Ray's Maria Taylor. The album and various bundles are available to pre-order now at the Flower Moon Records webstore and Bandcamp. Golden State was written and recorded by Radnor & Lee, and produced be Justin Stanley (Beck, Eric Clapton, Sheryl Crow).

Today Flower Moon Record and Radnor & Lee are pleased to present the official video for "Simple Harmony" the second single to be lifted from Golden State. The video, which was directed by Sam Fragoso premiered at American Songwriter and can also be shared at YouTube. The release of the single follows up Radnor & Lee's socially distant cover of "I Wonder What's Inside Your Butthole" which went viral, receiving praise from NME, Consequence Of Sound, The AV Club and more.

Earlier this spring, the band shared "Outside In" from Golden State with SPIN Magazine and the song is available to share and add to your favorite playlists at Spotify. SPIN says, "The lyrics [on 'Outside In'] address how life can be messy, how art is vulnerable and how love, like all things, can be a huge risk." Ben Lee adds, "They're the product of hard-learned lessons. We both feel resistance to living from the outside in."

"The album title refers more to a state of mind rather than California itself. The vibe, though, is a lot darker than what the shiny title may indicate. That includes the wisdom of experience and being beaten up by life, and ultimately realizing that imperfection isn't necessarily a bad thing," said SPIN. For Radnor & Lee, the genesis of the current chapter of their career marked by the release Golden State - which displays a clear graduation out of its "side project by two guys who like to do a lot of things" chapter - was equally strange and remarkable.

On the San Paulo stop of their first sold-out tour of Brazil, after soundcheck, the duo were invited to partake in a home-cooked meal of traditional Brazilian Feijoada, cooked by one of the crew members mothers. According to legend, Feijoada was a stew often containing pig feet, ears, tail, and other portions seen unfit for general consumption. While these ingredients have been refined and these days are often seen as more urban legend than reality, what cannot by contested is that this particular Feijoada, delivered by a kind retired art dealer to a rag tag crew of musicians in South America for the first time, was indeed laced with several micrograms of LSD.

We should be careful not to qualify what happened next as some kind of magical event, or "sign," for the ideas that came to the forefront of Mr Radnor and Mr Lee's minds during the following days - yes, their altered state lasted days - had indeed been brewing for some time. There was the reinforcement of the concepts of friendship and adventure. The reminder that "fun" as a guiding principle was "enough." There was a further scaling of ambition, the notion that plants all grow towards the light, that there is nothing shameful about wanting to be better or to affect more people or touch deeper spaces.

But above all, there was movement beyond language. A duo that initially prized lyrics as their superpower were suddenly faced with large crowds of non-English speaking humans, bobbing and swaying to their songs. It was clear that something other than wordplay was at work. There was sensuality, tenderness and rhythm. Transformation was at work. They later began to write songs. And these songs had a different quality. A richness, a warmth, a darkness, a wildness. It was only natural that the recording of these songs would require impeccable taste and sensitivity to their organic nature. With this in mind, our duo brought in Justin Stanley to produce: focussing on live recording, few overdubs, analogue gear, and the judicious administering of micro-doses.

Photo credit: Liz Bretz