Hank May’s ‘Tails and Trails’ Out Now Aug 16, 2024
Tails and Trails, the deluxe version of rising L.A.-based singer-songwriter
and producer Hank May’s acclaimed 2023 album Tails, is out today via Dangerbird
Records—get it HERE.
About the new album, May says…
“Because I love stories, I see metaphors in daily life constantly. When I became obsessed with the type of succulent that I named my album after, the metaphors kept coming. One thing you hear over and over when watching YouTube videos about Burro’s Tail is to be patient. As one YouTuber Mike’s Garden puts it, ‘Patience is the key to growing a donkey’s tail, because it takes several years to see them really trail in long, lush green stems.’ I’m calling this expanded edition of my album Tails and Trails because the songs have been nurtured and given time to develop. For most of my songwriting life, I made only demos and shared them with friends and never had the patience to make an album, so it’s nice to have real songs out there in the world doin’ their thing.”
Tails and Trails features four new songs including the previously shared single “Couch,”
acoustic reworks of Tails tracks “I’m Just A Lover Now” and “Pot of Beans” and a cover of the
Joanna Newsom classic “Peach, Plum, Pear.”
Tails was released last year to critical acclaim and features singles “Rainy Day,” “I’m Just A
Lover Now,” “Life Is Sweet”—which debuted via Paste who praised it as “a groovy pop track
coated in a candy folk gloss” that “lives up to its own title, with an earworm melody and a sharp
modernity”—and “Morgana,” the video for which was directed by Jo Garrity (Alvvays,
Crumb) and was named Northern Transmission’s Video of the Day.
Much of Tails came to fruition whilst May was wandering the streets of Los Angeles, spending
time with friends and absorbing even the smallest of details around him. “I put my antennae up
pretty high for this one,” he details. May and his good friend and collaborator Patrick Taylor
were able to experiment together in May’s home studio. “I intentionally set out to make a pop
record with intricate arrangements and was thinking of this as a playlist more so than a narrative
album,” May notes.
Tails followed his debut album, One More Taste of the Good Stuff, which was released in 2021 to critical praise from FLOOD, Under the Radar, Atwood Magazine, Treble and more.
- Rainy Day
- Life Is Sweet
- Aliens R US
- (Don’t Fear) The Narcissist
- Pot of Beans
- Can’t Let A Damn Thing Go
- Morgana
- Wild West
- Safe for Church
- I’m Just A Lover Now
- Silver Saucepan
- I’m Just A Lover Now (Acoustic Version)
- Pot of Beans (Acoustic Version)
- Peach, Plum, Pear
- Couch