Eddie Chacon unveils new single ‘Empire’ featuring John Carroll Kirby
Eddie Chacon | Photo credit: DeMarquis McDaniels
Eddie Chacon returns with ‘Empire’ featuring John Carroll Kirby. The track is the first to be released from Chacon’s second Stones Throw album, Lay Low, produced by Nick Hakim.
Eddie Chacon’s thoughtful strain of R&B muses on themes like mortality, failure, and growth. For nearly a decade until now however, one subject has felt too painful. On Lay Low, Eddie’s third solo album, he’s ready to examine the grief of losing his mother, Patricia.
Lay Low arrives 30 years after the heyday of Charles & Eddie, the duo that brought Chacon fame in the ’90s. After two albums with John Carroll Kirby, Chacon teamed up with producer Nick Hakim for this album. “At first, I was rusty, apprehensive. John was my security blanket. He mined the gold in me." While he and Kirby are still very close, “the time felt right to leave the nest.”
Eddie Chacon sees ‘Empire’ – out now, with a video directed by Bing Cao – as bridging the sound of 2023’s Sundown with the sonic world of the new album. It’s about “how we are sometimes more fragile than we realise,” Chacon says. “We think our choices and even our tiny actions won’t catch up with us… It’s about facing the damage that’s been done once it’s too late to save.” As Eddie sings, “everything we have is like an empire that we built upon the sand.”
Lay Low was recorded over two years in Hakim’s Brooklyn studio. The first time Eddie and Nick connected, they recorded three songs in three days. “From that point forward it seemed like we’d been working together forever,” Eddie says, with Hakim helping build an intuitive framework for Chacon’s songs of love and letting go. For all the weight of its subject matter, Lay Low’s mood is sweetly seductive. “I wanted the mood to be hazy & sensual,” Eddie says, “There's darkness, but there’s light to be found if you search for it. Nick understood this and created a musical landscape that feels awash in beauty struggling to find its way.”
Catch Eddie on his UK headline tour this October and November, dates below.
Tracklist
1. Good Sun
2. Let You Go
3. Empire ft. John Carroll Kirby
4. Lay Low
5. Birds ft. Nick Hakim
6. Let The Devil In
7. End Of The World
8. If I Ever Let You Go
Eddie Chacon Live Dates
UK
29 Oct - Birmingham - The Hare & The Hound
30 Oct - Bristol - Strange Brew
31 Oct - Manchester - YES )Pink Room
5 Nov - Glasgow - Stereo
6 Nov - Liverpool - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
7 Nov - Gateshead - The Glasshouse
9 Nov - Leeds - Belgrave Music Hall
11 Nov - London - Jazz Cafe
12 Nov - Brighton - Alphabet
