"The album...is a revelation...It’s music that’s built to last." - The Associated Press
"A classic country heartbreaker you can dance to" - Wide Open Country
"...a mix of different styles, from classic country to cosmic Americana to dreamy indie-folk, that showcase Lewis’ powerful vocals and strong lyrical content." - The Asheville Citizen-Times
"Cosmic Americana" - WNCW
"On her debut solo album, Lewis...trades in her blue notes for pure country. Lewis reveals a clear prettiness that much of her former work obscured, as well as formidable songwriting skills." - OffBeat Magazine
"Lewis delivers country-tinged indie-folk...you can also hear a rock sensibility in her vocals and melodies on such tracks as “Loser,” whose opening drum part echoes the beginning of the Ronettes’ 'Be My Baby.'" - The Aquarian Weekly
“...an awe-inspiring vocalist” - Radio Bristol
“...a powerful tribute to having your heart broken but making it through to the other side” - Americana Highways
“Wherever her muse takes her, we’ll be paying even more attention based on this gem of an album.” - Glide Magazine
“In this gorgeous testament to grace and perseverance in the midst of harrowing circumstances, Lewis steps into the spotlight - and outshines it.” - Mother Church Pew
"...ethereal, contemplative, and confident" - Sound and Soul
“...deeply pleasing folk-Americana with a country twist” - Americana-UK
“Erika Lewis is an exciting talent for country fans…she has it all” - Country Music People
“...able to sweep up all the sadness and pain of the human condition and bundle it up into something sweet and strangely uplifting…Taking the clear-eyed charm of Gillian Welch or Laura Cantrell and adding a cheeky twist of girl group sass” - Holler.
"Tuba Skinny’s Erika Lewis tries her hand convincingly at Americana on this...It’s a genre exercise, just like Tuba Skinny’s take on traditional jazz, but I’ll take exercises this well executed." - My Spilt Milk
"This feels like it was written to be a soundtrack to a period piece about mid-20th century America and we’re here for it." - Ear To The Ground
“...light and modern take on folk while still being rooted in the traditional side of the genre” - If It’s Too Loud
"The voice of an angel" - Beehive Candy
LISTEN: A WALK AROUND THE SUN
Today, Asheville-based singer-songwriter and member of beloved New Orleans collective Tuba Skinny, Erika Lewis, has released her new album A Walk Around The Sun. Lewis recorded the album after a health scare that required surgery that could have ended her career. "The prospect of losing my ability to sing was paralyzing and I am lucky enough to have friends who helped initiate the recording process, knowing that I would regret it if [sic] I didn’t do it,” Lewis told The Asheville Citizen-Times. “In preparation, I gathered some songs I had written over the last decade and finished a couple of new ones started during quarantine…I think there was a sense of lessened anxiety knowing that I would have something to share despite the surgery’s outcome.”
Produced by John James Tourville (The Deslondes) and recorded in Nashville at Andrija Tokic’s analog paradise The Bomb Shelter, A Walk Around the Sun features a series of lyrical vignettes that examine the margins between love and loss, joy and grief, and longing and contentment. Each of its 11 all-original songs reflects Lewis’s songwriting power across narrative and textures. Whether it’s through sweeping strings, pedal steel, a hybridized psych-rock guitar, or Lewis’ soaring vocals, A Walk Around The Sun takes a closer look at the connections between lovers and friends, and the effect of these relationships on the self. It’s a sweeping portrait painted with broad strokes of roots music styles—a sonic palette of classic country, cosmic Americana, mid-century rock n’ roll, and dreamy indie-folk.
On album opener and third single "A Thousand Miles," featured at The Bluegrass Situation, Lewis takes us on a breezy classic country ramble, her angelic voice soaring above an easygoing waltz adorned with warm pedal steel and fiddle. She explores the loneliness of isolation (“If You Were Mine”) and the seeds of young love (“First Love”). Lewis comments on the push and pull of romantic relationships in “Loser,” which Radio Bristol said displays “descending scales of David Lynch-ian, reverb-laden guitar riffs in the space between wistful lyrics.” On tracks like “Running Wild” and “Wild Thing,” she celebrates fierceness of spirit, while on the album’s title track, along with “Hearts” and “Love Song,” she grieves ending relationships and comes to terms with major life changes. Twangville called “Unsatisfied,” a song born from life in New Orleans and navigating the dynamics that come with relationships that revolve around the never-ending nightlife, “a taste of good music to come." The album ends with wistful, country dreamscape “Thief and a Liar,” where she laments the failures of her heart.
Lewis excels at bottling sweeping, deeply relatable themes, and unraveling the human experience, all while pinpointing her place in these stories and within the world at large. Her approach as an artist and performer is informed by the years she spent cutting her teeth busking with Tuba Skinny in the streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter and across Europe.
A Walk Around The Sun is now available for streaming and downloading HERE, and vinyl albums are available for pre-order HERE. Lewis will celebrate the release with a show in Asheville, North Carolina tonight, April 29th. Click HERE for show information. Be sure to follow Erika Lewis at the links below for the latest news.
CONNECT WITH ERIKA LEWIS:
WEBSITE | BANDCAMP | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | SPOTIFY
PRESS MATERIALS:
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Susan Hamilton || susan@sideways-media.com