“Paris, Indiana” – Brick Briscoe’s Latest Eclectic Soundscape

Introducing : “Paris, Indiana” – the brilliant new album from Brick Briscoe.

Embracing a spectrum of genres, Briscoe, together with a number of friends and collaborators, presents 13 brand new tracks to get your ears around.

A cross-Atlantic affair, “Paris, Indiana” is a heady cocktail of Jazz, Blues, Rock, Alternative, Americana, and Punk, with a Celtic reel thrown in for good measure.

[We’ve added a handy genre guide to the track listing below!]
It’s authentic, it’s raw, it’s emotional, it’s everything that you’d expect from Brick Briscoe, and then some …

BRICK BRISCOE : ‘PARIS, INDIANA’

In 2018, I had the opportunity to make a documentary about WWI for regional PBS. It took me across France and once completed, I spent a few days on my own in Paris. I had always been drawn to France due to the French New Wave, mostly Truffaut, Rohmer, Godard, etc … Those are the filmmakers who inspired me to go into filmmaking.

It was during the filming of the documentary (Chester and Gertrude at War) that i was inspired to start my own docuseries for the same PBS outlet. For the third season, I returned to France for 8 weeks to produce the project.

The project – “Any Road” – is about people who have made their lives in music – in various stages of success, and ability, but all were 100% committed to the lifestyle inherent with the world of music.

I met so many fascinating talents and personalities, that it gave me the idea to make a record where I co-wrote songs with those folks; To find our music and lifestyle similarities. So I made the pitch to one of my subjects who owned a studio and who had created a boutique record label. He agreed. The only thing left to do was to make the pitch to the folks I wanted to work with.

I met Troy Henriksen and Louis Gaston via the exciting Paris Songwriter’s Club at La Cave Cafe; The irrepressible Kim Giani and I wrote a song on the steps of the Opera. Topher Loudon and I met through Francis Kane in Belfast who we became a band with during Covid. I went blindly to his home in Brittany and we hit it off immediately. Topher Loudon and Anthony Masselin, are of course the formidable ‘Dorcha Cobs’.

I met ‘Squeeze Me I Squeak’ through Kim Giani, and I knew I wanted to work with her immediately – the same goes for violinist Remi Foucard. I met Margeaux Lampley via a friend in Toronto (who himself had never met her). After I met her in Paris, I came home to see her show up in a TV show I was watching. Turns out, she’s a damn good actor.

I’ve known Frank Nelson for over 25 years. We met through another Parisian on MySpace! Everyone I else I met through my producer Nick Buxton, such as, Karamel Craft, Nova Wild, Célia Abitabile, and the wealth of the reach of Basement Studios Paris. It really is a record about connections. Plus, it was an opportunity for my best friend Theodore Kiipch and I to write a song together in France. A dream we had always had.

I called in some of my own band mates to fill some things out. My band came to France as part of a short European tour and it seemed the perfect time to approach them all in person. And it worked! For the next several months we shared riffs and ideas via email, refining the material until we could get in the room together in Paris.

The process opened a window to a world I always knew I could be a part of. Collaboration. Something I had done very little with except in live improvisation. But lo and behold, i discovered a level of discipline and openness working these artists who come from much different backgrounds that of my Indiana life.

I’ve lived in NYC, Los Angeles, and Seattle, – chasing the film and music dragon – but I found something in Paris that felt so much like a spiritual home that I may just keep returning to make my records.

Calling the LP “Paris, Indiana” is a ‘tip of the hat’ to both cinema (thank you Wim Wenders) and to my other home in Petersburg, Indiana (population 2000). I have found a peaceful and energizing working environment in both places. I just never thought it would be making music. I assumed I’d be the next auteur.

“Oh I’ll make a film in Paris someday” But for now, getting to know Paris through music seems like the most natural thing in the world. And for some reason, both places seem to “get me”!
Go figure…

For more information about Brick Briscoe please visit www.brickbriscoe.com