The Anita Lofton Project
Longtime readers will recall our coverage of The Anita Lofton Project from it’s early beginnings [which we might add was part of the early inaugral launch of the Goldmine Sacks column], to touring with Iggy Pop & The Stooges with her former punk band Sistas in the Pit and making music that defies the gravity of time (past/present/future). With the release of the long anticipated album Brand New Day, Anita Lofton turns the page to a better & more beautiful tomorrow with styles that go back to the Bay & the South’s storied traditions with whole new inspired illumination of spirit.
The Anita Lofton Project was established over 8 years ago, illustrating an energy & Bay Area based bounty of styles, & rich instrumentation that stretches from current day fascinations to vintage rhythm & blues rock traditions. The album Brand New Day begins with “Boom Boom” that tallies up the material conceits & casts them aside for something greater that moves with a kinetic urgency that sparks with an invite to something new & exciting. Anita Lofton battles notions of singularity that mocks the mechanization of the technocratic cold side of the Bay’s current waves of gentrification on “I’m a Machine” that depicts a narrative of a mechanized humanity that desires real human heart-to-heart love. From driving rhythms & wild blazes of guitar shredding; Lofton & company create a sound standard designed to capture the collective attention of all around.
Consciousness awakenings are everywhere on Brand New Day, where Lofton sets out to create a genuine feeling of the process of realizing identity, discovering connective bonds where the intimacy stirs initially from the self & springs forth to others. The realizing & reckoning can be heard on songs like “Wide Awake”, where the song stream of the sleepy heart & mind moves towards the cognitive process that is detailed on “Starting To Believe” that arrives full-circle to the expressions & statements of self on “Who I Wanna Be”. Anita makes the entire record feel both live, alive, real & super personal where a true trademark series of styles makes classic sound new & vice versa. Ernest expressions of endearment spill forth on the honest cool guitar chord swashes on “Right Back Here”, that all arrives back home on the closing title track, “Brand New Day” to bring down the house. At this point The Anita Lofton Project completely oscillates the time-space continuum where the olden days of Bay Area scenes from the Fillmore’s Boom Boom Room to Oakland’s The Uptown are revived with a whole new energy & upbeat attitude. Like the title track’s temperature rising heart-racing momentum—Anita Lofton remains one of the Bay’s best multidiciplinary artists deserving of more attention beyond the Bay.
Read more about the band via their site.
Hear a preview of The Anita Lofton Project’s Brand New Day here.
Anita Lofton penned the following exclusive prologue to Brand New Day via the following reflections:
This record has a back to the basic roots of music feel to it and is raw, unfiltered, and full of emotion. My vision when I recorded it was to feel as if I were transported back in time rocking juke joint in the Louisiana Bayou with my band. Check out the album cover. The record starts out like a fast freight train with up tempo rock & roll tracks then coasts and ends with roots and folk. This new record is where the past meets the present and brings listeners a Brand New Day.
I carefully selected new players for my third The Anita Lofton Project Abum. I thought it was important to have a solid rhythm section, Kevin Lofton (bass) and Maurice Miles (drums) who have been best friends since high school (over 30 years). For the first time ever, I shared guitar duty with Brian Hill, a seasoned who guitarist who forgot his slide at a show, borrowed and used a lipstick container instead. Sharon Williams (violin) is classically trained and plays in regional orchestras. My band is full of seasoned and dynamic musicians who play hard, fast, soft and any where in between.
The Anita Lofton Project’s Brand New Day is available now.
