Sean Solomon – Remember
Sean Solomon spent two years writing and recording his debut solo album after Moaning — the LA three-piece he fronted, who put out two records on Sub Pop — went on indefinite hiatus in 2023. The result is The World Is Not Good Enough, out April 17th via ANTI- Records, and the first single “Remember” is out now.
Solomon is a San Fernando Valley kid whose formative obsessions ran in parallel: The Simpsons, Daniel Clowes’s graphic novels, Elliott Smith, Nirvana, Daniel Johnston. He booked his shows at coffee shops and The Smell in LA while still in high school with his folk-punk band Moses Campbell, then spent years in Moaning before stepping out solo. “Remember” sits in the quieter register of that lineage — acoustic guitar, bittersweet melody, the kind of directness that Solomon traces back to those ’90s touchstones. It’s a song about trying to hold onto a generous view of your parents rather than the complicated one. “This song is about trying to remember the good”, he says. The video cuts together old family home footage that Solomon’s parents asked him to digitise; he ended up repurposing it for the live visuals he performs with too. What catches me is how unadorned the song stays — it doesn’t push for its emotional effect, which is precisely why it lands.
Producer Jarvis Taveniere (Whitney, Purple Mountains, Waxahatchee) handled production and plays bass and some percussion on the record. Shannon Lay — former roommate, Sub Pop artist — appears on backing vocals and guitar. Taveniere describes the dynamic as brotherly: two anxious people balancing each other out while Solomon maintained a clear artistic vision. The album moves between bare-bones acoustic moments and something closer to Neutral Milk Hotel in the louder passages — marching drums, horn blasts, controlled cacophony. Solomon designed the cover himself, a Richard Scarry-style illustration where the gap between the cheerful imagery and the title does most of the conceptual work.
Beyond the music, Solomon also animates every video he releases, draws comics with his lyrics in word balloons, and — in a detail that’s hard not to like — hand-drew his own stage plot and tech rider. He performs solo, with a vintage TV set playing his animations and backing tracks from VHS as his only stage company. He’s currently on a European run supporting Unknown Mortal Orchestra through the end of March.
I put “Remember” on the list because it’s the kind of debut single that gives you a clear picture of what someone is — personal without being self-indulgent, and honest enough to connect across a room full of strangers.
Tracklist:
- Car Crash
- Finish Line
- Shooting Star
- Overdose
- Remember
- Postcard
- Blackhole
- Korpo
Tour Dates Europe:
- March 10 – Vilnius, Lithuania – Kablys #
- March 11 – Riga, Latvia – Palladium Riga #
- March 12 – Gdansk, Poland – Stary Manez #
- March 13 – Berlin, Germany – Metropol #
- March 15 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega #
- March 16 – Oslo, Norway – Rockefeller #
- March 18 – Stockholm, Sweden – Nalen / Fallen #
- March 19 – Lund, Sweden – Meteriet #
- March 20 – Hamburg, Germany – Mojo Club #
- March 22 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli #
- March 23 – Antwerp, Belgium – De Roma #
- March 24 – Paris, France – Le Trianon #
- March 26 – Glasgow, UK – Barrowland #
- March 27 – Manchester, UK – Albert Hall #
- March 28 – Sheffield, UK – Sheffield Foundry #
- March 30 – London, UK – Earth Theater #
# – with Unknown Mortal Orchestra
