Leon Bridges is back, though I’m not quite sure he ever really went away. Doesn’t he hang out at the Boiled Owl? Anyway, no matter where he’s hanging out these days, we will still shamelessly claim him as a local product and will tout his achievements as if we created them ourselves because living vicariously through young, attractive, talented people is so much better than toiling away in old, unattractive, untalented reality. Can I get an “amen”?
Fine. But I know more than a few hosannas will be sent heavenward by more than half the planet now that Bridges has announced his third studio recording. Produced by Ricky Reed and Nate Mercereau at Gold Diggers Studio in East Hollywood over the course of two “long” years, Bridges says in a statement, Gold-Diggers Sound is the young man’s “most sensual and confident album to date, and I cannot wait to unleash it.”
The 11-track collection, which includes last year’s collaboration with Terrace Martin, “Sweeter,” and the just-dropped “Motorbike,” will come out July 23 on Columbia Records.
“With immense joy, greater purpose, and sometimes doubt, I labored over these 11 songs,” Bridges goes on to say, “but the record truly came together when I immersed myself in everything Gold-Diggers, making it my home, my escape, and the center of my creative world. The record features some remarkably talented friends [and] longtime collaborators, and I believe it’s my most personal album yet.”
The video for “Motorbike” was directed by another famous R&B singer-songwriter, Anderson .Paak.
“The inception of [‘Motorbike’] started with this Afrobeat-type instrumental that my homeboy Nate Mercerau made,” Bridges said in the statement. “Prior to the session, I was in Puerto Rico for my 30th with some of my best friends, and the energy of that trip totally inspired this song. ‘Motorbike’ is about living in the moment and escaping with someone. It’s the personification of that unspoken chemistry you have with that person.”
Gold-Diggers Sound follows Bridges’ Texas Sun EP with Khruangbin last year, his sophomore LP Good Thing from 2018, and his 2015 debut, Coming Home. — Anthony Mariani
Contact HearSay at anthony@fwweekly.com.
