In the making of his fourth full-length, the Atlanta-based Curtis Harding dreamed up a batch of songs exploring the longing and unease of being far from home—a true-to-life reflection he soon expanded into an elaborate concept album about a pilot lost in space. The latest addition to an acclaimed catalog including his 2017 breakthrough Face Your Fear (co-produced by Danger Mouse), Departures & Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt merges the lavish scope of a space opera with the pure feeling of classic soul—ultimately bringing an even greater potency to his wildly eclectic sound.
Self-produced at Electric Deluxe Recorders (an Austin studio owned by Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas), Departures & Arrivals serves as the follow-up to If Words Were Flowers—a 2021 release hailed by the likes of UPROXX, who praised Harding for “making some of the best modern soul music out right now.”
One of the album’s most exhilarating moments, ‘Time’ unfolds in smouldering horns and galvanising call-and-response vocals as Harding offers reassurance to anyone losing faith. “When you feel alone it can be hard to see any hope, so I wanted to write an uplifting song about searching for the positive,” he says. “It might take some time, but if you keep pushing and put your best foot forward, you’ll get there.” Listen to the track below.
Curtis Harding – ‘Time’
With its track list ranging from the ornate romanticism of the album-opening ‘There She Goes’ to the surreal grandeur of ‘Hard As Stone,’ Departures & Arrivals marks the most complete manifestation yet of Harding’s expansive musicality. Born in Michigan but raised in Atlanta from age 14, he got his start singing and playing drums in church with his mother, a gospel singer who introduced him to seminal gospel acts like The Mighty Clouds of Joy. With his musical upbringing also including the Stax and Motown records his dad played at home, the ’90s hip-hop beloved by his sister, and the classic alt-rock favoured by his friends, Harding started rapping at age nine and later moved on to writing songs after teaching himself to play guitar.
In his early 20s, he began working in promotion for LaFace Records (the Atlanta-based label once home to legendary acts like TLC and OutKast) and quickly progressed to singing backup for CeeLo Green. After launching his own music career, he made his debut with 2014’s Soul Power and then delivered Face Your Fear—a genre-bending powerhouse that landed on NPR’s list of the year’s best R&B albums and soon found Harding touring with Jack White and taking the stage at major festivals like Lollapalooza.
“Because I’m away from home so much of the time, a lot of these songs came from feeling adrift and wanting to get back to the ones I love,” he says. “I started envisioning this character who takes a journey and gets lost in space, then ends up traveling through different galaxies and dimensions as he’s trying to find his way back home.”
Curtis Harding
Departures & Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt
1. There She Goes
2. Out In The Black
3. Banh Me
4. Time
5. Hard As Stone
6. The Power
7. True Love Can’t Be Blind
8. I’m With You
9. Felt It Inside
10. The Winter Soldier
11. Running Outta Space
https://www.curtisharding.com/
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