Be spell bound by Reb Fountain
Alternative-folk artist Reb Fountain will play at Sherwood this Sunday as part of her nation-wide tour. The tour is in support of her latest album, How Love Bends, which stays true to her genre-defining sound – smooth and captivating. The album is Fountain’s first in three years. Her previous albums were released during Covid lockdowns, so she’s excited to bring this into the ‘normal’ world.
“This is amazing – to be releasing a record where we can go and talk to folks in person, it’s been quite a highlight, to be honest. We’re just touring it around the motu at the moment. We had three shows over the last weekend, and I’m so excited to be making music, to be playing music to everyone,” Fountain says.
The album debuted at number one and in addition to digital, the vinyl and CDs have been flying off the shelves at local record stores. It’s been a journey – a couple of days before the release of her second album, Fountain suffered a serious head injury, which changed the trajectory of the next year for her and helped to influence How Love Bends.
“How Love Bends was really born out of that time and a different way of writing music and having musical conversations with my producer and bandmate Dave Khan. So this album really came about wanting to make something that was really unapologetic and clear and open to all aspects of myself as well as what was going on in the world.”
The result is a diverse range of tracks as there’s many different influences going into it. Fountain puts it best explaining the album is a way of describing how you can perceive everything differently over time – or maybe the way that you decide to perceive it can change – and how love isn’t this one sloppy thing, it’s a really complex emotion, feeling and experience, which can have longing and suffering or joy and hope attached to it.
The tour so far has been going really well, with many shows selling out. Fountain couldn’t be more happy, as she loves playing on stage, and having the opportunity to engage with her audience.
“It’s just so heartening to connect with people and play these new songs. It’s pretty exciting – I was like a kid in a candy store the first night – live performance is my favourite thing to do and so it’s really nice to get out and play these songs. They feel really good and we’re having a good time,” Fountain says.
Reb Fountain’s How Love Bends Tour will take over Sherwood on Sunday, 27 April. There’s a show at 5pm and 7pm – for more info, to hear her new album and to get tickets head to rebfountain.co.nz
