Eliot Bronson shares, “The end of a relationship can feel like a car crash. There’s that moment right before impact, where time slows down and you get this superhuman clarity on what’s about to happen. You also realize there’s nothing you can do to stop it. “ He continues, “I wrote “Let Me Go” right there, in that window of psychedelic lucidity. I heard the whole thing in my head — the wall of harmonies, the distorted electric guitar breakdown, the mellotron strings in the bridge. Writing this song felt like a portal, or the lifting of a veil. I was also microdosing at the time, but who’s counting. “
The early reviews of upcoming album Empty Spaces have been overwhelmingly positive; Rolling Stone Country praised the songs, “…cascading chorus harmonies, swirling mellotron, and distorted guitar solo…sad and fragile but impossibly massive all at once,” Atwood shares, ““Empty Spaces” dives into the bittersweet depths of emotional experience with humility, honesty, grace, and sadness,” Glide Magazine raves, “Bronson taps into some of his finest crooning with a touch of Chris Isaak and a touch of Jason Isbell…his song serves as a reminder of the high level of quality Bronson possesses in his songwriting craftsmanship, singing and overall musicality.”
The album was written during a period of tumult — including the breakup of a 10-year relationship, the end of an engagement, and a move from Brosnan’s adopted home of Atlanta to his current headquarters in Nashville.
Empty Spaces is about loss, redemption, the places we leave, and the homes we make for ourselves. More importantly, it’s an album about starting again and it’s Bronson’s sharpest songwriting to date.
Of the project the artist shares, “I began writing the kind of songs I needed to hear,” he explains. “Empty Spaces was the best healing work I could’ve ever done. I had a weird, challenging childhood, and I originally turned to music because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I made my own little world that made me feel safe and understood. This time, I really needed to find that space again. I made this record for the same reason that I wrote my first song. It wasn’t for anybody else; it was for me. Hearing the right words at the right moment can be the most magical elixir you can possibly take. It can heal you.”
Though to fully heal, Bronson, who Paste Magazine calls “an Americana gem, needed to make some changes. He relocated, he made the conscious decision to escape the shadow of his influences, too, writing a new batch of songs that sounded not like Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, or Tom Waits, but like Eliot Bronson. He sank more time into his daily meditation practice, allowing creativity to enter his life in waves. And after recording his two previous albums with Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile), he also decided to co-produce the new record with longtime bandmate Will Robertson, setting up in Robertson’s basement studio and tracking Empty Spaces‘ 10 songs in a series of live, full-band performances. The result is an album that’s emotive, pensive, melancholy, and wholly moving. This isn’t just a record about empty spaces, after all. It’s a record about the new discoveries that can fill that emptiness.
Eliot Bronson’s new single “Let Me Go ” is available now on all streaming platforms.The album, Empty Spaces, is out on July 24th, and is now available for pre-order here.
Stream:
“Let Me Go” here.“Good For You” here. “Empty Spaces” here. “With Somebody” here.
