Peter Bradley Adams

“I guess in this culture of ever-shortening attention spans, it’s good if a song can lift us out of the madness, even if only for a few minutes.” – Peter Bradley Adams

It’s no wonder that directors like Cameron Crowe favor the music of singer-songwriter and guitarist/pianist Peter Bradley Adams with choice placement in their films and TV productions: Peter’s songs are timeless, spacious and evocative, and simultaneously simple but profound. Nasvhille Scene writes, there’s “a certain blurry, art-house atmosphere in his songs makes them a good fit for indie scaled romantic films like Elizabethtown.”

Peter was first known as co-founder of KCRW / AAA radio darlings and commercially successful duo eastmountainsouth, signed by Robbie Robertson to Dreamworks Records. Now with Sarathan Records, Peter has garnered critical acclaim as a solo artist: “Everything about this recording, from Adams’s hushed croon to the atmospheric weave of acoustic and electric instruments... sustain the intimate and sometimes haunting mood that allows this CD to quietly stand out” (Washington Post).

What is most impressive is the tremendous passion, loyalty, and even love that Peter’s fans express online for his music: the social networks are filled with reports of listening to one of his records three times in a row, or that it was the perfect soundtrack to a road trip or a key moment in life. Peter’s songs capture a feeling of place derived from his personal experience, but are written in a universal voice that each listener can forever own, as their own. There is also a sweet but restless yearning: as Peter says, “there has to be tension in music. Even the most placid music has to have some sense of longing, otherwise it’s just boring; a close friend once told me if there was bumper sticker for me it would read RELUCTANT GYPSY”. During all his nomadic wanderings through Europe, India, and the US -- including living in Birmingham, AL, Los Angeles, Nashville, and now Brooklyn, NY -- Peter is always patiently waiting to capture the next song that feels like it has already existed forever. “Writing a good song... sometimes you just have to wait for it.”

But Peter didn’t wait long for Traces, which was written, recorded, mixed and mastered within six months after releasing leavetaking. The end result has the same timeless and powerful presence as the many landscapes he has wandered through for years.