Exclusive album premiere of ‘Real & Fantasy’ by Ariel Bui, out October 14th, 2022 via Audio Network.

The music of Ariel Bui, pulls from her wide ranging musical background as an artist and music educator, blending elements of indie rock, indie pop, country, soul, surf, and psych rock into a distinct sound that should instantly appeal to fans of artists like Angel Olsen and Courtney Barnett.

This new album ‘Real & Fantasy’ reunites Ariel with Grammy-nominated producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff), with the entire new LP recorded at his Nashville studio, The Bomb Shelter.

The album and song title comes from a line in the song’s chorus: “Always on the edge of something real & fantasy”. Describing her inspiration for the lyric and why she ended up choosing this as the album’s title, Ariel says that she “loved the phrase ‘Real & Fantasy’ for the title of the album, because unlike the more commonly used phrase “real or fantasy” it kind of highlighted for me that life is a combination of reality AND our dreams.”

Diving further into the themes and inspirations of ‘Real & Fantasy’, Bui sees this new record as “a sort of coming of age album for my 30s, with the story starting from my teenage years and concluding with the present day. I started with remembering what it was like to be young, experience hardships, have crushes, first loves, and fun. Throughout the journey, more adult themes slowly interweave throughout the story, whether it be the realities and responsibilities of “adulting,” the complications of how to define relationships that don’t fall within our societal norms, and exploring our identities, sexualities, and insecurities.”

Headline photo: Jonathan Kingsbury

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