Announcing American Foursquare Expanded Edition from Denison Witmer; LP & CD in stores now

March 21st, 2022 , by

Denison Witmer’s American Foursquare is now available in record stores on CD and LP. 

To celebrate the record store release of American Foursquare, Denison has released an expanded, deluxe edition of the record that packages together some previously released material, including simplified versions of several tracks, the song “Lancaster County,” and two previously unreleased remixes by Carl Granberg of “Catalina Love” and “Confident Sensitive Child.”

Those two new remixes are available for listening now. You can hear them here, or below.

Click here for a list of stores in Europe, or check with your local record store for ordering and availability. 

Denison Witmer’s Simplified EP Out Now

January 10th, 2021 , by

Denison Witmer follows up last year’s release of his album American Foursquare with a reframed look at four songs from that LP: “Birds of Virginia” (featuring Karen and Don Peris of Innocence Mission), “Simple and True,” “River of Music” (the first single from American Foursquare), and “Roseanne” (featuring Rosie Thomas).

To hear the Simplified EP, check your preferred digital streaming platform or click here.

The CD and vinyl for American Foursquare, delayed due to COVID-related supply chain issues, is tentatively set for release before the spring of this year. You can pre-order those formats here.

“San Francisco,” a New Song From Denison Witmer

April 17th, 2020 , by

Denison Witmer’s new album, American Foursquare, is out on May 8th. Today though, Denison has released another song from that project, “San Francisco.”

“San Francisco” finds Denison dreaming about an escape to the Redwood Forest in Northern California. Says Denison: “The Redwoods are my water level. The scale and timelessness of them helps me better understand my own life’s scale and timeline. I feel simultaneously young and old, naive and full of understanding.”

You can hear the song above, or on your favorite platform here. And if you pre-order at Bandcamp here, you’ll receive an exclusive version of “River of Music.”

Here are the lyrics:

Maybe I should book a flight to San Francisco
Rent a car and drive up through the redwood trees
Where they stand in silence high above my sorrow
There’s a message there for you and one for me

I see the child in myself as I get older
Still feeling every age that I have ever been
And I have joy when the light breaks through the shoulders
Of the Pacific giants swaying in the wind
I have a lifetime swaying in my mind again

I think I’m grieving the death of part of me
I think I’m leaving, won’t you come with me
I think I’m grieving the death of part of me
I think I’m leaving, won’t you come with me

It’s everything I’ve got
It’s not everything I need
It’s ok
I made my bed here, baby
This is where I stay

It’s everything I know
It’s not all that I believe
It’s ok
I made my bed here, baby
This is where I lay

New Music from Denison Witmer: “Catalina Love”

April 2nd, 2020 , by

Denison Witmer has released “Catalina Love” which you can hear on digital streaming platforms anywhere, or watch the video above. The album, American Foursquare, is out digitally on May 8th.

We all lose someone or something sometime, and this is why this new song is so important right now. In singing to very specific people about a very specific loss—close friends about the death of their 4-month-old baby—Denison is really singing to and for us all.

“Catalina Love is about coming to terms with things that turn out differently than we had planned,” says Denison. “When I am at a loss for words, I usually retreat into a mental space where I have more questions than answers. It’s a type of grief that leaves me wondering things like, ‘Am I the only one who feels this way? Where do I go from here?’”

This tender, careful, yet resilient song reminds us that we all have a love that is lost to us, we are all trying to let go but we just can’t. Every deep loss both compresses and lengthens the passage of time, God’s hand swings low far too often, and at some point, all of us will have walk up to the cliff of our own Catalina Island to give up our tears and let the ashes fall into the waves below.

Here are the lyrics for the song:

I don’t have another choice
I’m living in the void
When I think about you lately
My head fills up with noise

You left here two months ago
I saw the hand of God swing low
And the garden I had planted
Was covered in the snow

How am I going to let you know that I need your love?
How am I going to let you go Catalina Love?

Everything around went black
I sat up in the flash
Was it just me who heard it?
Is it just me who knows?

There are things I’ll never say
It will always be that way
Forever in your memory
Forever on your face

How am I going to let you know that I need your love?
How am I going to let you go Catalina Love?

I have a special place
A place that’s just my own
My namesake’s ash and bones
Are buried in the waves

“Save Me From Myself,” a New Song from Denison

December 6th, 2019 , by

We’ve released one song from Denison Witmer’s American Foursquare project, “River of Music,” and more recently a beautiful rendition of “For The Beauty of the Earth.”

Today we’re happy to release another new song from the American Foursquare project, entitled “Save Me From Myself.”

Here’s Denison on the themes of “Save Me From Myself:”

Family life is busy. I don’t have the same amount of time for self reflection that I once had. While I do miss that alone time, being part of a family has given me a different kind of clarity. My children teach me that my own needs are very simple. They just want to be loved. They just want to be heard. They just want to feel safe. I am reminded of the lyrics in one of my favorite songs, The Prayer Of Saint Francis—“It is In giving of ourselves that we receive.” I think family life is much the same way.

This song is the first track Denison recorded with Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman) back in February 2017 (!!!). The result, this song, is what led Denison and Thomas to keep tinkering and recording together. “I remember being really nervous,” says Denison, “because I wasn’t sure if I was actually making a new album or if we were just experimenting. When he added the piano part the song came to life and I somehow knew innately that, after my long hiatus from music, I was ready to start a new record.”

You can listen to the song here, or via your favorite streaming platform here.

Hear The New “River Of Music” From Denison Witmer

October 25th, 2019 , by

A few weeks ago, we announced American Foursquare, a new project from Denison Witmer. Today, you can hear the first single, “River of Music.”

American Foursquare was started with Thomas Bartlett (Sufjan Stevens, The National, Norah Jones) in New York City, and finished and mixed in Seattle, WA, with Andy Park (Death Cab For Cutie, Pedro The Lion, Noah Gundersen). Abby Gundersen and Aaron Campbell contributed instruments and vocals.

Here’s what Denison had to say about “River of Music”:

While writing this song, I often thought about how music is basically a magic spell. Something is created from nothing—arranging notes and rhythm and instruments—and it has the possibility of shifting our emotions, thoughts, and even our actions.  I take so much from music, so I’m grateful to give back in whatever way I can.  

“River of Music” feels like a fitting first song to release after my hiatus from recording and touring. It’s a love song. It’s a call to action to give back, pay it forward, live intentionally, and love unconditionally. 

Listen on your favorite steaming platform here, or below.

Denison Witmer Keeps Moving With New Video

September 5th, 2014 , by

“I’m determined to change,” sings Denison Witmer in “Keep Moving Brother, Keep Moving Sister,” a song from his self-titled tenth record. In a new video set to the song and directed by Laura Dart, a couple’s relationship changes and moves, set against the dreamlike backdrop of rising and falling  hot air balloons at The Great Prosser Balloon Rally.

Denison had this to say about the song and video:

My wife and I were driving through New Jersey a few years ago when we noticed the sky was full of hot air balloons. It was so beautiful that I almost crashed my car. We pulled off the highway with a simple plan: find out where those balloons are taking off or landing. We drove for an hour or more, winding through the countryside, stopping often to get out of the car and take in the sky full of balloons. Its an indelible moment of spontaneity, love, weightlessness, and being in the moment with someone you love. I feel the same way every time I watch this video.

Denison is also embarking on a “Living Room Tour” from November 2014 to February 2015.

West Coast USA – November 2014
Germany / EU – December 2014
East Coast USA – January 2015
Midwest USA – February 2015

Want to host Denison Witmer show in your living room? Email contactdenisonwitmer at gmail dot com for more details.

Asthmatic Kitty Invade UK

June 4th, 2013 , by

We have not one, not two, but four shows in just three days for Asthmatic Kitty artists Fol Chen and Denison Witmer in London, starting on June 3.

Denison’s recently released self -titled album has received glowing praise from the likes of Uncut, who gave it an 8/10 and said “it’s a beauty” and  featured one of Denison’s tracks on their Best Albums of the Month compilation.  Denison will play his first headline UK show  at the Angel in Islington on June 3. He follows that  and then an invite only show at Black’s, also in London on June 4 (for an invite, please email tom at asthmatickitty dot com.  Denison then heads north to Manchester for a show at the Castle on June 5.  All ticket details are available on the tour page.

Fol Chen will make their way into the UK for their first London show for 3 years when they play a free gig at the Shacklewell Arms, London on June 5.  Tickets can be downloaded here. They’ll be playing songs from their brand new long player The False Alarms described by The Line of Best Fit as “everything is meticulous, deliberately ingenious. It all flows excellently; there’s no disjointed genre-hopping here.”

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Denison Witmer’s New Album Out Now

May 2nd, 2013 , by

A decade and a half into his musical career, singer-guitarist Denison Witmer has released a self-titled album, and for Witmer, Denison Witmer comes as an occasion to reflect on the unusual lessons of a life spent as a quiet, underground success.

“Looking over the arc of a career, there are moments when you got it right,” he says, “and moments where you didn’t. For me, music’s always about the process. It’s not always about the final product; it’s more about the journey. You work song by song and album by album in pursuit of something—I really try to trust that approach.”

Building the Honey Jar studio with producer and collaborator Devin Greenwood has made it possible for him to create a recording using the same patient, intuitive processes that have driven his songwriting—and his career. Witmer was able to bring in trusted performers like Greenwood, William Fitzsimmons, Dawn Landes, and Sufjan Stevens, and give them free rein to realize his music.

The result is an organic musical self-portrait, drawing inspiration and consolation from sources as different as Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and the life of knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey, and weaving them into what is arguably Witmer’s most direct and personal album to date.

Denison Witmer is out today on Asthmatic Kitty Records.

Be sure to check out Denison on American Songwriter, where he’s Writer of the Week.

“One  source of inspiration for this record was the story of the knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey . . . He said that some days you pitch it perfectly, other days you don’t. It’s so erratic that when the ball leaves your hand, you have to immediately accept that it might not be great or go where you want it to. You have to focus on the next pitch and let go of the mistakes behind you.” Denison Witmer, speaking to American Songwriter

New EP from Denison Witmer: The Ones Who Wait Part 2

November 6th, 2012 , by

The Ones Who Wait—Part 2, a six-song EP by Denison Witmer, comes out today.  Part 2 is a follow-up to Denison’s March 2012 full-length, The Ones Who Wait.  Rather than a cohesive album, Part 2 is a collection of songs that form a concluding chapter to The Ones Who Wait, tying up loose ends in anticipation of the spring 2013 release of Denison’s tenth record.  The EP features a handful of reinvented songs from The Ones Who Wait, previously unreleased material, and a spacious, patient cover of label-mate Sufjan Steven’s “Abraham.”  The Ones Who Wait—Part 2 is available on Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon.

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