Works From Home, 1995-2015: a 15-song collection of home recordings, radio sessions, and rare compilation tracks, originally released by Shrimper Records for Cassette Store Day 2017. Mostly “lo-fi,” as the kids say, but professionally mastered; Includes covers of Billy Strayhorn and the Mekons, songs from unproduced musicals, and an art-song setting of Arthur Rimbaud (trans. John Ashbery). Cassette currently sold out; download available through Bandcamp.
"Loyal Opposition" b/w "Distracted" is the 2014 single by the Human Hearts, featuring vocals by Jenny Toomey (Tsunami, Simple Machines, Future of Music Coalition). Originally released on UK pop label WIAIWYA, as part of their 7777777 subscription series. Order 7” picture disc or download here.
Day of the Tiles: A new (2020) EP by the Human Hearts. 4 songs from our recent sessions with the great Mitch Easter (Sneakers/Let’s Active, producer for R.E.M., Game Theory/Loud Family, and much else), plus 2 home/4-track recordings. “A Different City For a Different Life” and “Untimely Beggar” will be on our forthcoming full-length, New Metropolitan Forms; the others won’t.
Digital only; download available through Bandcamp.
CDs of Another (Shrimper Records), the 2012 album by The Human Hearts, and a double 10" vinyl edition designed by graphic novelist David Heatley, are for sale here. Digital downloads are available from Midheaven, Amazon, and iTunes.
From Robert Christgau's Expert Witness review: "Franklin Bruno knows pop ... My favorites on this consistently and straightforwardly songful album are the rocking 'Cheap Sunglasses,' about the girlfriend he saw through, and the rumbaing 'Not Just When We Kiss,' about the one he stuck with."
The Accordion Repertoire (Edge Books) is my first full-length collection of poems; copies are available here. From the publisher's description: "Franklin Bruno's poems move through the languages of commerce and philosophy, the forgotten codes of old Hollywood and the radio serial, and the contested spaces of the contemporary city with musicality, anger, and wit."
(Read "Flash Crash" at Lana Turner. Read "Approach to Ziggurat" at Sink Review.)
My book in Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series, on Elvis Costello's 1979 album Armed Forces, published in Continuum Books' 33 1/3 series, is still available.
Dance Card:
Friday, Nov. 17, NYC The Human Hearts (full band), record release show for Viable, with The Scene Is Now and Jennifer O’Connor at Main Drag Music, 50 S. 1st St., Williamsburg, 8:30 pm. $15.
Sunday, Dec. 3, NYC Playing piano in Laura Cantrell’s States of Country, with Mimi Roman, Queen Esther, and Christian and Cole at Union Pool, 484 Union Ave., Brooklyn, 6 pm. $24 - tickets here.