Logan Lynn releases SOFTCORE, Homer Marrs collabs
Cubby Portland-based musician Logan Lynn recently released his 11th studio album, SOFTCORE, via Kill Rock Stars on June 7th. Along with it came an EP featuring an acoustic cover of the title track by bear rocker Homer Marrs and a remix by Jocelyn Guntar.
Anchored by a bouncy synth bass line and dreamy electronic elements, the song “SOFTCORE” is an ode to love, sex and togetherness which arrived alongside an official video. This video also serves as the final chapter to the full SOFTCORE film – comprising all of the campaign’s music videos. Lynn shares, “It’s about the absolute wildness that happens between two people who are desperately in love with each other. The song, like the record it shares a name with, is about getting everything from someone else and still wanting more.”
Earning acclaim spanning Punknews.org, AdHoc Project’s “Thought Enthusiast,” Instinct Magazine, Bear World Magazine, GLAAD, Ghettoblaster Magazine, and support from Apple Music “New in Indie” and TIDAL “Folkified Favorites,” the new collection infuses Logan Lynn’s old-fashioned belief in monogamous love and self-tenderness with his exuberant, playful and in-your-face brand of synth-laced queer indie punk.
The acoustic cover by Homer Marrs and remix by Joceyln Guntar are the first in a series of reworkings by various queer artists of many songs from the full album. More will be released as EPs soon, the next of which drops July 18th. “To help us celebrate the release of my 11th studio album, SOFTCORE, which was just released on Kill Rock Stars on June 7th, we reached out to a bunch of my friends and labelmates, as well as other LGBTQ+ artists doing cool stuff, to link up with us around reinterpreting the record, across genres. It has been really cool so far, with a ton more collaborations, remixes, and covers incoming,” said Lynn.
“I love what Homer and Jocelyn did for the ‘SOFTCORE’ single and always think it’s cool when my songs find homes with new audiences,” he continues. “Being a solo artist can be lonely at times — and boring after over 25 years of working alone — so I always try and find ways of building community around these releases, and SOFTCORE is no exception. Big, gay, fun. I also think Kill Rock Stars is rad for letting me curate projects like this around my albums. They are visionaries and punks and always seem down for a single like this where it’s like, ‘OK have a little techno and a little heartfelt acoustic, on us!’ — all on the same release — and nobody ever blinks an eye. It’s gorgeous chaos, by design. More is more.”
Like many gifted musicians, Logan has always used his songwriting as a way to cope with the ups-and-downs of life. Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian community that “hated gay people and only sang a cappella” the album is brimming with commanding, danceable sex positivity. With a title like SOFTCORE, you might assume that Logan is going straight for sexuality, but it’s about so much more than that. It’s about how warmth can make way for strength, how going through one of the hardest experiences of your life doesn’t have to make you hard. “SOFTCORE is not about pornography,” says Logan. “In the midst of this stuff that hardens us up as people, things that have historically sent me spiraling or sent me out to be in solitude, I want to stay soft, I want to stay open and sexy.”
SOFTCORE is self-described as “equal parts ‘FUCK YOU!’ and ‘LET’S FUCK.’” The record sounds like that: it sounds positive. It sounds pissed. It sounds horny. But in the end, it resolves in a way that feels genuinely hopeful. Like Logan’s life has.
