Summer Salt Announce New LP ‘Campanita’ Named For Lead Singer’s Late Sister

ON TOUR THIS SPRING AND SUMMER

Austin, Texas trop-pop duo Summer Salt (singer/guitarist Matthew Terry and drummer Eugene Chung) will release their new album Campanita on May 19th via Wax Bodega. The album takes its title from a nickname given to Terry’s late sister, Madeleine, by their grandmother. When Maddie and Terry’s cousin, Angelina, passed away in January 2021, Terry was shaken to his core; it was the first time he’d experienced this kind of loss. He became determined to create something that would live on and celebrate the life of both his sister and cousin forever.

Campanita is a breezy, blissful, and intimate monument to love, family, and everything in between. Its 12 tracks meander through sun-soaked and rose-tinted memories, deep rooted relationships and loss. The album drifts across a palette of dreamy jazz, bedroom pop, beachy bossa nova, and desert-night indie rock. There are guitars, keys, and gorgeous, cloud-light harmonies, but there are strings, synths, horns, and harmonicas, too. Today they share the lead single and music video for the title-track “Campanita”, and announce a full US headline tour beginning in May. Upcoming tour dates can be found below and at summersalt.band/tour.

Pre-Order Campanita via Wax Bodega: http://lnk.to/SScampanita

“‘Campanita’ is a song about missing someone and having to feel them or find them in things that aren’t tangible or physical,” shares Terry. “I wanted to write a dynamic pop song with a happy overtone, but one that also felt sad and confusing at the same time. I kept singing a melody with the word Campanita in it until it just clicked. In a weird way the line “you are so smart, and gorgeous, but you’re good” just fell right into place with the melody, which is a mantra my sister and I always used with one another. I think when we miss and grieve for someone, we often wonder if they knew the impact in which they had on our lives. We want to make sure that they know, after everything is said and done, that they were good. A place of comfort and goodness for you. We imagine all the things that we would say to them given the chance. And because you can’t ever have that last conversation this song was written and is sung as my way to scream that into the infinite.”

The process of creating Campanita, the band’s fourth full-length release, allowed Terry to stay close to his sister and cousin, and the end result is a work that will not die: it will live on forever, drifting through the heavy, warm southwestern air.

“The easiest place for me to put some of the energy I was feeling through this time was into something tangible, making something that will be permanent,” says Terry. “I was thinking, ‘This can’t be over, her life can’t be over, so I need to continue.’ So that was just something I ran with, and it’s been a beautiful process making this album.”

The LP is a bold step forward in Summer Salt’s skyward arc. Throughout the record’s creation, drummer, percussionist, and keyboardist Chung experimented with new sonic elements, building a sound that’s fuller and more textured. “As we get older and write more songs, Matt and I are getting more interested in the production side of things and trying to make things sound a little different than what we’ve been doing,” says Chung.

Lead single “Campanita” is the first introduction to the record, with starry, gentle chording before Chung’s drums fade in like an engine rattling to life, propelling waves of hummed background vocals and Terry’s easygoing southwestern tenor: “You are so smart, and you’re gorgeous, Campanita/But you’re good, and that is why I need ya,” he climbs on the chorus. It borrows from a phrase Terry and his sister would repeat jokingly to one another, while the song “Macaroon” name checks Maddie with a pun: “Hey, Mad love for you,” Terry sings. A later track, “Sana,” which is based on an old Spanish nursery rhyme, was written and performed by Terry’s cousin and fellow band member Anthony Barnett. Being one of Maddie’s favorites, the song was recorded as a dedication, with the hush and mellow sound of Anthony singing in Spanish.

Terry says of the writing process and the difficulty in writing about something so emotional, “Sometimes when I would be writing lyrics, it almost felt like they were gifts. It was like they were given to me.”

Terry and Chung composed the songs while living apart—Terry in Dallas, Chung in San Francisco. They self-recorded much of the material before meeting in Fort Collins, CO in December 2022 to finish at The Blasting Room. Chris Beeble produced and engineered, and Joe LaPorta mastered the record. Anthony Barnett and Winston Triolo contributed guitar, bass, and backing vocals, and will join Summer Salt on their headline tour this spring.

More than any record before it, Terry and Chung are excited to put Campanita into the world. “It’s here forever,” says Chung. “Time can’t take this away from us.”

www.summersalt.band