Carmen Braden Sows New Immersive & Exploratory Album, Seed Songs

Fri Nov 12, 2021

Sown from a thicket of inspiration throughout the pandemic’s earliest days, multi-award-winning contemporary composer and singer/songwriter Carmen Braden unearths her immersive and exploratory new album, Seed Songs.

With previously unveiled singles “Kick Kick” and “Menu” landing prior to release, the 18-song collection opens with “The Mind is Wild” — a spacious and rich journey into how we as humans internalize and connect to our environment.

Check out “The Mind is Wild” here on YouTube:

“The first lyric reveals that ‘the wilderness is just a state of mind,’” Braden offers, adding, “this is from a realization that I carry the influence of the space, the cold, and the gentle pace of my northern home within me, no matter where I am.

Carmen Braden Captures Pandemic Confinement with “Menu”

Fri Sep 24, 2021

Study after study has shown that women have borne the brunt of stresses related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Canadian singer-songwriter Carmen Braden’s new single “Menu” captures the sentiment.

Viscerally, at that.

Every man, woman and child in arms reach wants a piece of me
Like I’m the only bird in a house full of foxes,
chickadee chickadee

“Menu” is sparse and industrial, with dark synth and artfully disjointed beats. Braden speak-sings throughout; her voice, matter of fact.

“Scramble for the door/lock it down, lock me in,” she sings calmly. And that’s what so many of us, to one extent or another, have had to do over the course of the past year: take a deep breath and endure family confinement without going cuckoo, even though the possibility is quite definitely there.

“You’ve got me all carved up like a menu” is the song’s refrain, and early on she gives us an image of meat falling off the bone. “’Menu’ puts forward the idea that someone’s whole being is tied to another’s needs,” Braden said. “I’d say it’s about the grind of day-to-day life. The demands on your physical body, and on your energy, on your time.”

Contemporary Composer & Singer/Songwriter Carmen Braden Previews New Album Release

Fri Aug 06, 2021

A continued force within the immersive world of contemporary music, Canadian composer and singer/songwriter Carmen Braden has released her new single, “Kick Kick”.

As the premiere glimpse of the multi-talented artist’s forthcoming third album Seed Songs, “Kick Kick” reveals the first of many moments captured and woven through song across the new full-length release.

Give a listen to “Kick Kick” here:

“Each song has a core — a ‘seed idea’ — I tried to capture,” Braden shares. “They’re each a kind of vignette: a moment in time; a snapshot of joy or struggle, fragments; phrases; edges…