Blond Ambition, the brand new pop project of Ex Cops’ Brian Harding, has announced the debut album Slow All Over, set for release on May 19 through Brooklyn’s Swoon City Music. To coincide with the album announcement, Blond Ambition has also premiered the record’s new single “Stupid Boy / Girl”. Blond Ambition will play a Los Angeles show at Silverlake’s Out Of Order on Thursday, February 23.

Harding, formerly of the Brooklyn project Ex Cops, left the bright lights of NYC for the serene woods of upstate New York after the release of the project’s sophomore release Daggers. While there, he wrote new material and recorded demos in a cottage in the woods of Tivoli. But while standing in an LAX terminal in early 2016 to catch his flight home after finishing the final Ex Cops tour, Harding decided to change his surroundings.

“I got off the tour in LA and didn’t get back on the plane,” says Harding. “Literally at the airport I decided I wasn’t going back.”

No stranger to Los Angeles, having played the Hollywood Bowl as a guitarist with Daniel Johnston’s band, Harding stayed with friends in LA until he found a place of his own.

“I’m much happier now,” he says. “Los Angeles gives me city and country. Also I write more when I don’t have to wear a jacket everywhere.”

There he connected with his friend and producer Andrew Miller, the former guitarist for Dum Dum Girls who he had met while their bands toured together, and recorded what Harding calls “fun stuff” and “mostly hip-hop tracks.” From there, recognizing their chemistry but each sticking to their roles as songwriter or producer, the pair began work on some demos of Harding’s material. Taking inspiration from the “attitude influence” of Madonna, the new solo project, dubbed Blond Ambition, immediately began to take flight.

“I had a clear vision for what I wanted this project to be aesthetically and sonically,” he says. “My dad used to play trumpet for Ray Charles and I used to be obsessed with The Genius Comes to Town, which is like a very early world-creation album, and I chose to focus on things like Desert Sessions or Channel Orange where it’s a record you’re not just hearing, you’re living in it.”

Harding played nearly everything you hear on Slow All Over himself-with the exception of lead guitar, which was performed by his childhood friend Jason Roberts-from programmed and sampled beats to bass guitar to various synthesizers, bongos, and shakers. The album was completed in just under six months. “We were learning as we went,” Harding says. “Throw a dart out here and hit a good player. We were very fortunate to be around really good people, musically and wholly.”

SLOW ALL OVER
BLOND AMBITION
MAY 19, 2017
SWOON CITY MUSIC

1. Hurricanes 2
2. Speak
3. Shasta
4. Good News
5. F.S.L
6. Lights
7. Stupid Boy / Girl
8. Dillon
9. Necessary Lover
10. Confused 4EVR
11. Houses Of Reason
12. Dab Boi