Returning with their first new music in 8 years, Stubborn Heart have announced their anticipated new album ‘Made Of Static’, released on June 4th via One Little Independent Records.

Luca Santucci and Ben Fitzgerald, who have spent the last few years developing the ten brooding electro-soul tracks that make up the successor to their lauded 2012 self-titled debut, have once again struck a fine balance between ominous synth-soundscapes and introspective songwriting.

Balance is the key theme here. With Fitzgerald leading the production and manning the machines, the sound is rawer than on their previous album. Left-field pop with dark, icy edges, it finds a home somewhere in between r&b and cold wave. Santucci brings the heart and with it his aching, obsessive lyrics and a desire for something grittier in its presentation. The duo’s talents complement each other perfectly throughout.

Santucci has amassed an impressive list of writing and vocal credits in his time, with the likes of XL and Warp signee Leila Arab, Plaid, Riton and Soulwax amongst them. Fitzgerald has also been hard at work at his home studio programming various styles of music for artists and producers from around the world. As Stubborn Heart, they come armed with some serious experience and a wealth of influences. There’s an honest simplicity in the way they create, with lyrics written in an immediate, direct fashion with the aim to catch a feeling rather than emulate one. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Talking Gold
2. Proves To Be
3. Against The Tide
4. Mum’s The World
5. Points Of View
6. Everything Matters
7. To Make You Happy
8. Oh Stephanie
9. Drop The Ball
10. Out Of My Hands

NYC author/writer/actor Larry "Ratso" Sloman has collaborated with some of the most dynamic figures in pop culture from Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, John Cale and Leonard Cohen. Ratso also wrote the best-selling memoirs for Howard Stern, Anthony Kiedis and Mike Tyson. Now at 70, Ratso announces debut LP Stubborn Heart. Ratso explains, “If you would have told me when I was covering Dylan's Rolling Thundertour for Rolling Stone Magazine that forty-four years later, I would be releasing my first album I would have laughed and asked for a hit of whatever it was you were smoking. Guess I’ll take that hit now.”

For the last forty-four years Larry “Ratso” Sloman has forged an impressive career as a writer of books, lyrics and most recently screenplays. Credited with writing features on Lou Reed, George Harrison and Leonard Cohen for Rolling Stone, Sloman was also personally invited by Bob Dylan to join his 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue as the tour's official scribe, which led to Ratso's first book On The Road With Bob Dylan (dubbed by Dylan as "The War and Peace of Rock and Roll”). On tour he was given the moniker “Ratso” by Joan Baez for his disheveled appearance. Ratso has collaborated with Howard Stern, Anthony Kiedis, David Blaine, and Mike Tyson on their best-selling memoirs. He was asked by Leonard Cohen to preface On Tour with Leonard Cohen and Ratso's biography of Houdini will soon be a major-motion picture.

Ratso has paid his dues in the tower of song, having written the lyrics for over thirty tracks with Rick Derringer (McCoys) and ex-Velvet Underground founder John Cale, including "Dying on the Vine," which became Cale’s signature solo song (inspiring not one, but two novels). Ratso has also acted in films as diverse as the award-winning short The Black Balloon, the horror film Satan’s Little Helper and has a large role in Martin Scorsese's upcoming Netflix documentary on Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour, out in April.

What hasn’t Ratso done? His own album. At 70, Ratso is releasing debut album Stubborn Heart, produced by his close friend Vin Cacchione (of Soft Black and Caged Animals) at his studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Stubborn Heart blends a classic songwriting approach with a contemporary sophistication. The album features Ratso singing on eight originals (including songs that were co-written with John Cale) and what he describes as an “audacious” Bob Dylan cover, along with the generous talents of his friends Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Sharon Robinson (Leonard Cohen’s co-writer, producer and back-up singer), Yasmine Hamdan, Imani Coppolla and more.

Reminiscing on the album Ratso says, “Everything about this project was fun. And it was always about the songs. They had been lying dormant since 1984. They deserved a life.” Each track carries a significant and often astonishing history. For instance, the John Cale collaboration "Dying On The Vine," was originally conceived in hotel room off Sunset Blvd. whilst trading lines with Tom Waits and Chuck E. Weiss, whereas Sharon Robinson was convinced to sing on the record in exchange for Ratso writing the aforementioned Leonard Cohen preface for free, described by Ratso as an “old school barter.”

Stubborn Heart is an album that is fittingly autobiographical, harking back to various stages of Ratso’s accomplished career and life, sung by a guy who witnessed the counter-cultural explosion of 1970's NYC and birthed forty years later within the DIY confines of Brooklyn. His Rolling Stones fan club card long gone, Ratso’s now a card-carrying member of the American Association of Retired Persons but he’s determined to ride this new career wherever it takes him. “Maybe I can be the Jewish Susan Boyle,” he muses. “The oldest best new artist ever and if that doesn’t pan out, I can always perform on subway platforms. Hey, I can get in for half-price!”

TRACK LISTING

1. I Want Everything (ft. Yasmine Hamdan)
2. Our Lady Of Light (ft. Nick Cave)
3. Caribbean Sunset (ft. Imani Coppola & Paul Shapiro)
4. Dying On The Vine
5. Living In Moonlight
6. Matching Scars
7. Listen Little Man
8. Stubborn Heart
9. Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands