Singled Out: Kevin Koplar's Broken Breeze

Kevin Koplar just released his classic folk-rock anthem "Broken Breeze" and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the track that comes from his forthcoming debut album "To A Better Dark." Here is the story:

This song was a blast to record, & the immensity of the song never lost sight of the bare-bones, hollow sounding ¾ acoustic guitar behind it all. Us three producers, Rick, Cos & I, added guitars, Nashville-tuning acoustics, bells, mellotron, pedal-steel slide, layers of background harmonies, bass, and an out-of-tune piano.

Then we brought Brendan Buckley on (Morrissey, Shakira) who I happened to know from Jiu Jitsu, to throw some quick drums on "mainly at the end". He didn't just do one track, but multiple kit takes, in addition to percussive rain sounds, cymbal washes and the like. When I worked with engineer Bill Mims (formerly of Sunset Sound) on it, as if all the other crap on it wasn't enough, we brought in the section quartet to his house to get real strings.

To me, it was magical how these layers really didn't overcomplicate the beauty of the song at its bare acoustic form, as overdubs are ought to do. and everything we added was brought in not because the track ever lacked anything, but to playfully grow its almost cinematic appeal.

Tunes often come to me in random moments- The line "throw a lil piece of my heart into the water" came to me, with melody intact, I was somewhere in Italy with my parents getting onto a boat and the line just kinda jumped into my head as I descended into this water taxi. Good lines to me feel like they always had existed, and this definitively was one of those. I finished it months later at the beginning of the pandemic, when that eerie, surreal time made sense to dive in and help this uncanny tune find its form.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

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