‘Shake It Loose’ by Natural Bridges | “Royal Oakie – Summer 2024”
‘Shake It Loose,’ a single from the upcoming compilation Royal Oakie – Summer 2024, marks the first new release from Natural Bridges since 2021.
Produced in collaboration with Stevie Cornell and David Glasebrook, the song was recorded at Ryan McCaffrey’s (Go By Ocean) Sun Machine Recording in Novato, CA, on a road once home to David Crosby. This area also holds deep personal significance for Johnson due to his Coast Miwok heritage.
Centered around Matthew Johnson’s songwriting, Natural Bridges delivers heartfelt songs enveloped in the golden glow of a timeless sound, reminiscent of lost classics from the depths of a dollar record bin. Johnson’s writing exudes warmth and sincerity, capturing everyday life with a resonant touch, each song a perfect snapshot of a moment in time. His music is charming, endearing, and memorable.
The new single showcases the band’s evolving sound and offers a glimpse of what’s to come. While 2013’s ‘Good Medicine’ wrapped Johnson’s songs in a haze of lo-fi soul and ‘Residual Daydreams’ (2019) introduced more country and folk influences, ‘Shake It Loose’ sees the band exploring a classic country-rock sound. The track, with its soaring pedal steel, crunchy guitars, and Farfisa organ, evokes the styles of Neil Young, David Crosby, Ron Elliot, and the Sir Douglas Quintet.
The song was inspired by a crow: “Has anyone else noticed more crows than usual hanging around lately? They seem to be showing up for me on a daily basis, floating from a palm tree to a redwood to a power line. On a walk in my neighborhood, I spied a dark object out of the corner of my eye and looked down to see the body of a crow under a rose bush in someone’s side yard. I wondered what led to the demise of this bird, kept walking and let the story unfold in my mind. So this song came out of that. I’ve been working on a batch of new songs lately and this isn’t the first time a crow has shown itself to me and offered up its story for a song. I’ve heard that crows can remember human faces, and also tell if you are friend or foe. In my Miwok culture, we consider everything around us to be our relatives, so I feel like I owe it to the crows to listen to what they have to say.”
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