Brand new video from Fred Abong (Throwing Muses, Belly) premieres on Side-Line
New Orleans-based alternative folk-rock artist Fred Abong presents the single “Shadows” from his latest “Fear Pageant” album, recently released via the Seattle-based label Disc Drive. This is Abong’s seventh long-player to date already and should please fans of the darker side of Leonard Cohen, Joe Strummer or Guided By Voices.
Fred Abong got his musical start in the 1980’s on the Rhode Island hardcore punk scene. In the early 1990s, he played bass for Throwing Muses and then Belly. Putting music on hold for academic pursuits, he then earned a PhD in Humanities and taught at various universities for eight years before returning to music. Now back as a solo artist, Abong also plays bass in the Kristin Hersh Electric Trio.
Available now is the video for Shadows which “came into being in much the same way as all my songs do … via a set of strong images or vignettes that flood into my head in response to a piece of music I’ve written,” says Fred Abong.
“I mentioned that the song makes me want to slow dance with my woman. This is exactly what I was seeing when I first laid down the arpeggiated chord progression that constitutes the beginning of the song … that and her lovely silhouette dappling every surface in the room. Those images gave way to Homeric scenes, something like Odysseus returning to Penelope after the Trojan War. A sense of triumph is the idea, though in this case not over armed conflict, but over a long and bloody war of the heart. Prayers of gratitude are in order.”
Abong earlier teased several tracks from the album, including “Father”, “My Way” and “Fear Pageant”. This new record follows Abong’s “Yellowthroat” album, released in 2022 and recorded with Rob Ahlers (50FOOTWAVE, Kristin Hersh Electric Trio) and earlier albums “Homeless”, “Pulsing” and “OMOPH”.
The “Fear Pageant” album is out now and available across fine music platforms, including Bandcamp. The record is available on vinyl or as a digital download.
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