New Zealand singer-songwriter and local Weissenborn meistro, Thomas Oliver (Cushla Aston) has shared his brand new single 'Shine Like The Sun' and announced the release date of his second studio album, Floating In The Darkness coming out 28th April 2017.
'Shine Like The Sun' is "a song of longing for love" wrapped up in a warm, slow-building groove, backed by healthy bursts of horns, features Louis Baker on backing vocals/electric guitar, Sam Notman (drums), Johnny Lawrence (bass), Ed Zuccollo (Hammond organ, Rhodes), Adam Page (tenor/alto sax, clarinet, flute) and Ariel Bamborough (backing vocals).
Floating In The Darkness (featuring his Silver Scroll award-winning song "If I Move To Mars") is a deep and raw, reflective body of work, largely self-produced, written and mixed by Thomas himself, with an additional soul-stirring collaboration with renowned producer and composer, Rhian Sheehan ("Let It Be This One"), input from Grammy Award-winning mix engineer, Trina Shoemaker, and mastering by Vlado Meller. As a result, he sees the songs on Floating In The Darkness as an intimate and honest reflection of himself - "a product of a whole lot of searching for the magic zone."
Thomas Oliver is a New Zealand singer-songwriter, internationally recognized as one of the world’s leading players of the Weissenborn lap-steel guitar. Thomas released the world's first full-length, all instrumental, all Weissenborn album in 2013, titled Beneath The Weissenborn. The album debuted at #6 on the NZ charts, received 5 star reviews with sold out shows across the nation.
With over two million views on his YouTube channel, Thomas has developed an international audience from his home base in New Zealand, and has performed throughout New Zealand, Australia, Europe and Vietnam, and has toured and shared the stage with such legends as Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton and Fat Freddy's Drop.
His vast diversity in his vocal delivery has also earned him a reputation as a vocalist in Drum & Bass and other electronic music, and his list of collaborations includes some of DnB's most respected producers, including Black Sun Empire, Rido, Concord Dawn and Urbandawn, and boasts releases on prestigious labels, including Andy C's RAM Records, Goldie's Metalheadz. More recently, his single “If I Move To Mars” was remixed by Urbandawn and released on Hospital Records in January this year.
October 2015 saw the release of his much-loved (and critically appraised) single “If I Move To Mars”, which would go onto win the prestigious APRA AMCOS Silver Scroll award a year later. With airplay support from ZM, The Hits and The Edge, it nabbed a place in the Official NZ Music Chart for 5 weeks.
“If I Move To Mars” gave us a glance into the melting pot of Thomas’ largely self-produced, written and mixed new album, Floating In The Darkness, which was finished with the love and support of a successful crowd-funding campaign. The pledge reached $22,500, which was $5,000 over its $17,500 target from fans and supporters, locally and worldwide allowing Thomas to finish the album he had conceptualized with the help of a few friends along the way such as Rhian Sheehan, Grammy Award-winning engineer, Trina Shoemaker, Louis Baker (b/v’s on “Shine Like The Sun”), Vlado Meller and more.
Following his Silver Scroll win, Thomas released an acoustic version of “If I Move To Mars” and added to the star-studded Bob Marley tribute album, Stir It Up – Aotearoa’s Tribute To Bob Marley, with his spiritual, airy rendition of “Is This Love”.