Singer-songwriter Launna releases new single 'Starry Merit'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –

The singer and songwriter known as Launna has released her latest single, titled, “Starry Merit.” The track is the most significant official release from Launna since her popular June 2013 single, “Special,” which was nominated in four categories on the 56th Annual Grammy Awards first-round voting ballot. Launna’s EP, “Sucker for Guilt-Tripping” was also nominated for eight first-round Grammy categories in 2011. With this latest offering, “Starry Merit,” Launna continues her tradition of clarion, crystalline vocals combined with deeply introspective, soul-searching lyrics. It showcases her as the songwriter of some of the best piano-based pop compositions in decades.

Launna’s musical training is both classical and homegrown. Currently a performer of pop and alternative music in the Tori Amos and Fiona Apple vein, she wrote, performed and recorded her first song at age 9. Her first full-length record was completed at 17.

“From an early age,” she writes, “I spent countless hours singing alongside my mother, a pianist, who accompanied and harmonized with me as I sang everything ranging from classical, contemporary, Broadway, gospel, and country to pop music. From elementary school through college, I was an active member of numerous a cappella choirs and ensembles, during which time I was deeply influenced by all eras of classical music.”

The artist has expressed a particular affinity for lyric writing. While her passion for the creative musical process encompasses every area of the art of sound, she spends much more than the requisite time to pen poetic and personal words for each verse and chorus. Her every phrase tingles with heartfelt meaning. This is exceptionally so for “Starry Merit.”

She writes candidly of this, “’Starry Merit’ exposes a raw and profoundly personal family subject matter – an experience relating to rejection and abandonment from a parent, which has been a source of tremendous shame and emotional torment for me throughout my life.”

Launna’s unabashed courageousness in writing about topics often reserved for college courses in gender studies continues to win her devout fans, especially fans who are as socially conscientious as they are passionate about music. She describes herself as an “accidental lyrical feminist,” a title which has stuck with her throughout her career, and one which appears in the first paragraph of her official artist’s bio.

With her new single, she writes, “I invite my listeners into my ‘imperfect’ space of pain [to] awaken in others my now age-acquired, hard-earned insight: to know when to publicly voice, mourn, and work through your trauma, but also to recognize when it is time to finally let go of the grief and leave painful experiences in the past where they belong; even if that means allowing lifelong painful questions to remain unanswered.”

Launna openly banishes three such questions of her own in “Starry Merit,” and asserts her command over her personal character and social bearing in a way very rarely demonstrated on the public stage.

“Above all,” she writes, “I hope ‘Starry Merit’ will be a reminder to others that rejection is not in any way a barometer of our true self-worth. In spite of the odds that may be ponderously stacked against you, you can find the strength to drag yourself out of the abyss and learn to love who you are.”

“Starry Merit” is available online worldwide.

-S. McCauley

Staff Press Release Writer

MondoTunes

ARTIST CONTACT INFO:

eMail -

[email protected]

Website -

http://www.launna.com/
 

Twitter -

https://twitter.com/launnamusic … @launnamusic