VIDEO: “You Must Not Need A Friend At All” –
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“On the whole record, I was very interested in space, and the contrast being acoustic, natural sounds and instruments, and the analog synth. There is something very striking about how natural it can still seem – processing the loss of a relationship, from indoors, looking outside, allowing myself to feel the loss and the passing of anger into an honest grief and complaint of what is left.” -Terry Price / Photo Ops
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The autumn blaze maple tree, famous as music in Nashville, is a fast grower. Imagine its teeming majesty of red leaves from above one house in the city’s Inglewood neighborhood. You see it ensconced like a controlled flame by rolling hills and winding roads. A familiar pattern lulls you from days into nights in this dreamy park town. You never realized from the ground, under the shade of that tree, how all these beautiful designs in any city keep you sane.
The sweeping vantage points of Photo Ops’ Burns Bright belong first to the quiet of Nashville’s first modern suburb after World War II. Terry Price lived there while perfecting the melodic soft-rock modes that pleased audiences on tour with Camera Obscura and Fences.
Price took this way of seeing to a new home in Los Angeles. Long drives through dimensional vistas ended in his room in Los Feliz where he recorded Burns Bright. When Etta James, Molly Drake, and The Byrds are all touchpoints of sound and silence, what emerges is a gentle homage to the commonalities of lasting influence in pop music, a kind of time-bending presentiment — the moment of tracking in a studio when everyone senses it’s a moment that will be remembered. Reaching through the layer of industry noise in both hallmark cities as we know them from a distance — is this a hit? — Price treasures the visceral experience of making and recognizing music.
The most devout of craftspeople, Price is on a quest toward the merciful essence of recognition when he writes songs; each line discovers a pure element of comfort, calling back to the land and to his musician mother’s love of transcendent melodies. Burns Bright reminds us how those forces are one and the same.
Price’s heroes in music are more than inspirations. To him, they offer examples of how to keep breathing in a culture that discourages total presence. It’s true that moving an open heart through the world comes with constant risk. Looking out at the expanse we all share — really seeing that world — is the practice of Burns Bright, and the special ability that makes Price a songwriter to cherish.
What the press has said in the past:
“Pure At Heart asserts [Terry Price’s] prowess for perfecting a very distinctive blend of 4AD dream-pop and folky wisdom.” — American Songwriter
“Impassioned, confessional, and surprisingly upbeat.” — Interview Magazine
“Photo Ops spills himself out through an adventure of the body and soul alike… A serene expanse; a technicolor coat of lush sounds exploring self-doubt and perseverance, isolation and connection, inertia and progress.”
— Atwood Magazine
“… ethereal folk-pop as welcoming as a sea breeze but seemingly carrying the weight of the world. In a way, his songs are glossy postcards with gentle rebukes scribbled on back” — BuzzBands LA
“Terry Price copes with loss and pain through a powerful brand of folk music.” — Consequence
“Price’s sound is one of timelessness” — The Wild Honey Pie
“The bottom line is that the songs themselves are enchanting structures—a testament to Price’s songwriting ability.” — Analogue
“…a message of hope, with its dream pop influences…evidences a hard-fought patch of brightness on what’s been an arduous journey.” — Northern Transmissions
“Price has turned to music as a catharsis to purge himself of his past traumas.” — PASTE
Track List: