Bright Light Bright Light drops "This Was My House"
feat. Niki Harris & Donna De Lory The New album 'Fun
City' out September 18. LISTEN TO 'THIS WAS MY HOUSE'
HERE
Bright
Light Bright Light Builds an '80s Disco Haven
on New LP Fun City, out Sept. 18
Drops "This Was My House" featuring Niki Harris and Donna De
Leroy,
Dancefloor-Ready Ode To Safe Spaces
Bright Light Bright Light 'This Was My House'
(Official Audio)
On
September 18, Bright Light Bright Light (the performance
alias of Welsh international pop star Rod Thomas) will open
the gates to Fun City, his meticulously crafted
collection of '80s-inspired disco-pop that he built as a statement
of perseverance during restless times. To be released on his
own label YSKWN! (in partnership with Megaforce Records and
The Orchard) and to include collaborations with a yet-to-be-announced
“who’s who” of LGBTQ+ icons and musical trailblazers, Fun
City is his love letter to marginalized communities who
feel scared or forgotten.
To celebrate the album announce, he has dropped first single
“This Was My House,” a sugar-rush of dancefloor pop featuring
Madonna’s longtime backing vocalist duo Niki Haris and
Donna De Lory. The song was produced by Initial Talk
who has been delighting throwback production fans with his recent
reimaginings of Dua Lipa, Janet Jackson and many other pop artists.
Originally written as an banner-waving ode to LGBTQ+ safe spaces,
the song should ring universally true to individuals worldwide
who are struggling to find peace and refuge during the current
political climate and public health situation. Paper
Magazine praised the “Studio 54-worthy single”
saying “it's not every day that we get a perfect disco song.”
“The
song is about how the safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community have
been fractured of late with a palpable uprising of anti-LGBTQ+
and xenophobic rhetoric, which is scarily even more real now
as these public spaces are closed for the foreseeable future
due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Bright Light Bright
Light about the origins and evolution of the track. “LGBTQ+
people - most notably trans women - are attacked and killed
at an alarming rate, and so this song is a fierce statement
that every living person deserves to feel safe in the place
they call home, whoever you may be.”
While creating Fun City, Bright Light Bright Light
was sonically inspired by the legacy of iconic LGBTQ+ artists
like Sylvester, Erasure, Scissor Sisters and Hercules & Love
Affair, and to capture the spirit of the queer trailblazers
before him, he recorded the vocals for the album on the empty
dancefloor of East Village gay club Bedlam. He hopes Fun
City will examine the ways marginalized people stay strong,
focused and creative through times of social and political hardships.
The album title itself is a historical reference to a quote
said by NYC mayor John V. Lindsay who on his first day in office
in 1966, amidst a crippling transit strike, said "I still
think it's a fun city.”
“The idea of a deeply flawed but still beautiful world is
what the album is about, so I thought it was a fitting image
for how the LGBTQ+ world has had to find laughter and solidarity
in face of prejudice through history, dancing through pain and
living for love in spite of hate,” said Bright Light
Bright Light.
Bright Light Bright Light has been a staple of the international
LGBTQ+ music scene for over ten years, having released three
prior albums and touring as both a solo artist and has support
alongside pop royalty like Elton John, Cher, Erasure, Ellie
Goulding and The Scissor Sisters. He also collaborated with
Elton on his 2016 banger “All In The Name” which he also performed
with the music legend on "The Graham Norton Show."
For the past four years he has curated, hosted and served as
the DJ for regular afternoon dance parties (which he affectionately
calls the “Romy & Michele's Saturday Afternoon Tea Dance”) at
Manhattan’s Club Cumming and Brooklyn’s C’Mon Everybody. Aside
from using his music as a powerful platform for equality, he
has also actively fundraised for The Trevor Project, Ali Forney
Center, Hetrick-Martin Institute, ACLU, and Elton John AIDS
Foundation over the years.