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Mica Brenard Debuts Swedeport Blues
Deep Cut nominated for FOMAT in Dundorf
Vrassa City, Duchy of Vrassa
July 20, 5710


Mica Brenard, Folk Singer, voted First in FOMAT Poll

Vrassa District Records released the debut album from Alt-Folk singer-songwriter Mica Brenard called "Swedeport Blues," a theme album about the journey of a young naieve girl to Port Swedes, and the heartbreak she found there. The album is loosely biographical about Brenard's actual experience in Port Swedes from 5706-08, where she dreamed of hitting it big and instead was introduced to only distractions and terrible options.

"After I got out of national service, I decided to pursue my career in Port Swedes," said Brenard, 25. "I was just some mountain girl from Razar, and enlisting in the NSP was really the first time I had ever even been to a big city. I just knew that all the music I liked as a kid came from Swedeport, so I was gonna go there and make my name." But apparently, all she found was drugs, disappointment, "... and terrible men. I'm not saying every guy in Swedeport was bad, but I felt like I was some stupid deer and I was surrounded by wolves. It was all I could do to avoid the worst of them. And I'm pretty stupid sometimes, so a lot of those problems I brought on myself."

While her life was a self described "mess", she also went to work playing clubs and getting experience. "There is a market for folk in Swedeport," said Brenard. "Vrassa and Nevaras are good scenes for folk, for country, for the alt-folk that grew into Grit and then Noise Alternative too, and also what turned into anti-pop like what Stepanov used to make. It all comes from folk and blues at its base, and the people who listen to music who are not into the more poppier stuff or the art stuff like they are doing over in Kaliburg tend to be drawn to folk and alt-folk."

As she started getting some gigs, drugs almost completely derailed her ambition. "There was a lot of heroin all around me for much of that time, and there are a few weeks that are missing for me too, but thank god one of my friends from Razar came to Port Swedes to see me and when she saw me, she did an intervention, got me straightened up and took me back home to Razar to clean up my mind and refocus." After returning to Razar, Brenard said she decided that she couldn't do her whole career herself, hired a manager for a percentage of sales, and decided to get serious about being a professional.

"I played in Razar for like 6 months," said Brenard, "and went to Vrassa City a couple times, and my manager sent a demo to VDR to see if I could get into the studio and record a proper EP. VDR listened to the demo and had me come in. I did another couple songs for their A&R rep and asked me if I had anything more than 3 songs. I said I got 22 songs, and so they agreed to sign me and get me into a proper studio to record a record."

The result was 5710's Swedeport Blues, which chronicles Brenard's time in Port Swedes. "There's a lot of really personal stuff on there," said Brenard. "But I kind of hid a lot of it so first nobody would get mad at me for talking about them, and second, I want to make it a little more universal so that others could kind of hear their own stories in my songs." Her first single, with supporting video is called "Soon You Will See" and it has anchored sales across Kalistan Proper, even making some inroads into Ananto's notoriously parochial music market. The song inspired more than 35,000 sales in its first week, whcih outsold even Thomas Jones' Top 10 selling Modern Art during her debut week.

In a strange twist of fate, Brenard's release coincided for the opening of the voting for the upcoming FOMAT. Her first single however was not the one promoted by VDR to join the contest. Instead, the lachrymose song "Thoughtless Words," was the one the record company preferred to enter. "That song is about a guy who I thought was this smart guy, and it turns out that intelligence doesn't grant someone the ability to be gentle or kind," said Brenard. "But I wrote it more as a catharsis, to kind of push out the poison, rather than wallow in it. It has that effect, it brings tears to my eyes to even sing it sometimes. But I don't know why the record company would promote it to FOMAT."

"Well, we did it because it is her best song," said Brenard's Manager Tabitha Yeager. "Plus, I think it is probably the one that VDR thought could possibly win FOMAT. Audiences tend to like two kinds of music: the vast majority of nations vote for the most generic pop music imaginable, but every once in a while, they vote for someone like Jennifer Stepanov, who sings a song so good it can't be denied. Brenard wrote a song like that. 'Thoughtless Words' is the most Stepanov-like song on the album, and it also has these baroque elements that are meant to attract the Art crowd to folk music. It is a song that is designed to win, pure and simple. Very mature, very pathos inducing."

"Tab said that?" laughed Brenard when she heard the answer. "That's like super manipulative, but whatever..." The song easily won the voters choice poll on Radio 1 and became the nation's candidate for the upcoming FOMAT contest. Brenard will travel to Lutzenkamp to perform the song before an international audience. "Well, I'm not sure about my chances," said Brenard. "There is a lot of pop music I am going up against, and people tend to like the easily digestable, not the stuff that forces you to feel sorry for me. But we'll see. I'll do my best."

Meanwhile, the actual first single from the record, "Soon you will See" has moved to regular rotation on Radio 1 and has entered the Folk & Country Charts on Channel 6 at number 12. The Video will enter regular rotation on M7 this week, and Brenard is expected to gain major exposure from her M7 appearances. "Man I am so glad I got pulled out of Swedeport. Now when I go back, I'm not gonna have to play those gross longshoremen bars. I'll get to play on a proper stage, and I'll get to keep my g-d d--ned clothes on."

Check out Mica Brenard's "Soon You Will See" right here and if you like it, her album Swedeport Blues is available at all retail outlets, published and distributed by VDR.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WW4qcmrJ3E]

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