2023 Tui Best Children’s Artist nominee and self managed artist Claudia Robin Gunn is excited to announce pre-orders are open for the limited edition vinyl run of her 6th children’s album Firefly, produced by Grammy winner Dean Jones (NY) and created with help from NZ On Air Music.
She will be pressing locally with Holiday Records in Auckland. With two singles out already, and the album releasing to streaming platforms on September 8th via AWAL, the vinyl run will ship out late October in time for the holiday season, with a linocut art print and firefly stickers as a bonus for pre-orders.
Firefly the album is light hearted and yet grounded, covering themes from perseverance to food puns in a tangy audio collection for littles with big lights to shine, and parents who love to hear real instruments in the bops their kids play over, and over and over again.
Production took place virtually between Claudia’s Cockle Bay, Auckland studio and Dean’s Hudson Valley, NY haybale studio starting in late 2021 with a pilot track (Little by Little) proving to be a winning combination. This led to a grant to produce the full collection. All songs feature Dean Jones on harmonies and instruments, as well as guest artists Suzi Shelton (NY) and Little Miss Ann (Chicago) making an appearance second single 'Colours’.
With her indie label Little Wild Music a handcrafted operation despite recently clocking 10,000,000 Spotify streams of her music, Claudia has illustrated the cover art with a mix of watercolour and digital (procreate) and set up a spare room studio to shoot the music videos. The first video Hope is a Verb, released this week, features signs made of crayon and paint on cardboard, in a nod to climate protest placards seen around the world, and the words of youth leader Greta Thunberg and poet Amanda Gorman.