Sean Solomon Shares "Finish Line" Debut Album 'The World Is Not Good Enough' Out Friday April 17
US TOUR DATES WITH UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA
BEGIN MAY 1
“These songs are almost coming from a place of childlike expectations,” says musician and animator Sean Solomon of ‘The World Is Not Good Enough’, his debut album out this Friday which features his own hand-drawn cover art in the vein of children’s author/illustrator Richard Scarry. Ahead of Friday’s release he is sharing the album track “Finish Line”, which speaks to these themes as they pertain to careers and landing your "dream job". Listen + watch the new video for the track below.
Listen to “Finish Line”: https://youtu.be/0tQzYlI2kBI?si=Qle-1nbB6iUZt_z9
“I work in animation and I’ve had tons of development deals where I think I’m going to create my own animated series,” Solomon explains. “If they greenlight your show, suddenly you’re rich and have this awesome creative job. But every time I’ve almost had my dream job, there’s some corporate merger or layoffs and suddenly everyone I work with is fired and my dreams are squashed. That’s when I wrote the opening line “I thought I saw the finish line but I was on a treadmill the whole time.”
He continued: “The song evolved into being about something more universal. How I expected more from the world. Not just for me but the people in my life that I love and see struggling. Everyone was going through some sort of rejection, and it felt unfair that you could work just as hard or harder than anyone else and still get the short end of the stick.”
Art has been Sean’s primary mode of processing his surroundings since early adolescence. After going viral with last year’s plaintive indie-folk entry “Car Crash,” which came with a self-directed and self-animated music video, Sean has been steadily reintroducing himself to audiences, some of whom might already know him from LA underground-rock staples Moaning and Moses Campbell. Animation heads might recognize his whimsical artwork from visuals collabs with Run the Jewels, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Odd Future. Now, as a fully-fledged solo artist, Sean has tied the disparate threads of his creativity together. What emerges is a finely drawn world where childlike innocence and existential questions collide into colorful confetti that is equal parts chaotic and wondrous.
After Moaning went on indefinite hiatus in 2023, Solomon thoughtfully wrote and recorded his first solo songs over the better part of two years, culminating in what would become ‘The World Is Not Good Enough’. The contemplative eight tracks feature fellow Sub Pop veteran and Sean’s former roommate Shannon Lay on backing vocals and guitar and producer Jarvis Taveniere (Whitney, Purple Mountains, Waxahatchee), who produced and stood in on bass and some percussion.
“Working with Sean felt brotherly,” says Taveniere. “We’re similar people; we can both lean into being neurotic or anxious, so it was fun to balance each other out ... He was somebody who had a tight vision but let me be playful while also staying sensitive to the material.”
In addition to animating each video he releases, Solomon has also been cooking up comics with his lyrics in word balloons for each new song. He even drew his stage plot and tech rider by hand: “All the stuff that's annoying about being a musician, I'm like, ‘How can I do this in a creative way so that it doesn't feel like work, and it feels like something that's inspired?’” So that he can integrate his animated visuals into his live shows, Solomon has lugged a vintage TV set armed with a VHS input to each venue, the animations and backing tracks running on tape being the only bandmates he shares the stage with.
Sean and his vintage TV set will be playing the album in full this Thursday followed by a Q&A with Jonah Ray (Mystery Science Theater 3000, Nerdist) at the album release party at Brain Dead Studios in Los Angeles. Then beginning May 1, he will join Unknown Mortal Orchestra on a run of West coast dates; all upcoming shows are listed below.
TOUR DATES
April 16 – Los Angeles, CA @ Brain Dead Studios Album Release Show
April 30 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall %
May 1 – Bellingham, WA @ Wild Buffalo House of Music %
May 3 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Hall %
May 5 – Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factory %
May 6 – Missoula, MT @ The Wilma %
May 7 – Bozeman, MT @ The ELM %
May 9 – Fort Collins, CO @ Washington’s %
May 10 – Boulder, CO @ Fox Theatre %
May 12 – Colorado Springs, CO @ Black Sheep %
May 13 – Albuquerque, NM @ The Historic El Rey Theater %
May 15 – Tucson, AZ @ La Rosa %
May 16 – Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s %
May 17 – Tijuana, Mexico @ Marko Disco %
May 19 – Ventura, CA @ Ventura Music Hall Reserved %
May 20 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ Fremont Theater %
May 21 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst %
May 22 – South Lake Tahoe, CA @ The Hangar – Taproom and Bottle Shop %
% - with Unknown Mortal Orchestra