Club Red: Brett Dennen, 9/22

18 Sep Club Red: Brett Dennen, 9/22

Beyond the Groove is pleased to announce Brett Dennen with his full band, Thursday, September 22. The event takes place at Club Red in Telluride Conference Center, Mountain Village. Doors open at 8 p.m.; show time is 8:30 p.m. Indianapolis sister duo Lily & Madeleine opens for Dennan. (All ages.)

Tickets are $25-40 in advance. Tickets here. Also at Wizard Framing and Entertainment, located on Telluride’s Main Street, 126 East Colorado Avenue.

All shows at Club Red are produced by Denise Mongan of Beyond the Groove Productions, with major support from Telluride Ski & Golf, the Telluride Conference Center, Inn at Lost Creek, and the Peaks Resort and Spa. For more information, go here.

And please scroll down to the bottom of the story to watch a video featuring Dennen.

Brett Dennen in town again at Club Red.

Northern California-native Brett Dennen returns to Telluride, Colorado in support of his studio release Por Favor. A follow-up to 2013’s Smoke and Mirrors, his sixth studio album dives deep into loneliness, loss, and love – and all their side effects. It is the sound of an artist working through his insecurities through his work, thereby letting go of his monsters. But it’s by no means a sad affair, nor is it the “rainy day record” Dennen initially thought he was making.

Often framed by uplifting choruses and bright acoustic arrangements, these songs brim with optimism, the palpable sense that the tide is turning:

“And I want to love you for the way you are/ Not the way I am/ So let’s go now/ Back to the bonfire where we began,” he sings over a chugging groove on “Bonfire.”

More than a decade after his self titled debut catapulted him to stardom, Dennen was once again attracted to how he made his earliest recordings.

“My whole approach was that I wanted to write and sing the songs from the same place  I wrote the first record, which was a place of trying to discover who I am,” he says.

That marked a detour from his most recent releases. With those he felt like he was exercising his craftsmanship  – “being a songwriter for the sake of being a songwriter” – as he puts it. “I really wanted this new album to come across as a whole piece,” Dennen says. “I consider it to be a batch of songs that all live together and complement each other.”

Did he succeed?

Huff Post put it this way:

“The call of the music drove him to the place where he finally understood he could not outrun himself. And the beauty here is that no matter how much disappointment has cast a spell, and, no matter how much he doesn’t believe in himself, Dennen perfectly presents his unsettled life. While lyrics rise as a storm behind his eyes, the music serves up soothing grooves to the air of an indomitable voice…,” said critic Brian D’Ambrosio.

Full review of Por Favore here:

At the embrace of “Por Favor,” (his sixth album, available May 20) all sides of the man, now 36, would change – one to the next, then to another, and to the one after that, toppling like dominoes. The entire makeup of the man turned inside out.

“Por Favor” establishes the point of singularity and Dennen didn’t hold back when it came to the emotional beats. Indeed, it’s a thrill to hear Dennen go through this process, uncovering self-truths and forming new questions along the way. “Por Favor” paves a redemptive journey into a heart that’s not always happy and draws a portrait of a maturing artist mired in shadow pining for daylight.