New Kate Tucker Single "In Your Arms" Out Today

Kate Tucker is set to release a slate of singles, videos and VR experiences leading up to a winter 2018 debut of her full length LP, Practical Sadness, written and recorded by Tucker in the year following her mother’s unexpected death.  

While Tucker considers her new album “more of an antidote to sadness, rather than an expression of it,” the first single “In Your Arms,” out November 17, begins with a heavy guitar riff that would belie such a statement if not for the shimmering relief that the chorus brings. It’s as if we’ve come to the story late and just as soon as the storm begins, the sky clears to blue. 

Tucker wrote “In Your Arms” with her close collaborator, Kenny Childers. “We were in this phase where we were mining stories from twentieth century American history that had been for various reasons, obscured. We tried to write within the narrative of what we were discovering.  What would it have been like to have been the girl or the guy in the elevator in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 31, 1921?”

What happened in that elevator would spark a violent race riot in one of the most affluent black communities in the United States, leading to the internment of over 6,000 people for as long as 8 days under the National Guard and martial law. Within the first 24 hours, 35 city blocks would be burned to the ground, leaving 800 people injured and 300 dead.

“These stories are part of us whether we know them or not, and reconciling with the mountain of hurt we’ve inflicted and endured as a nation is the only way we can move toward healing. Music is a powerful healing force, and it’s the best way I know to look anything straight in the eye, especially tragedy. There’s a practical sadness to being American.” Tucker says. 

Kate Tucker will release various visual content to accompany the album, and for “In Your Arms” that includes a VR experience created in collaboration with Ben Scheer, founder of Scheerio whose mission is to simplify VR, making it accessible for all. Scheer says: "What if you heard a song and you could build the world that you see when you hear it and share it with your friends. I built the world that I thought of when I listened to ‘In Your Arms.’ I tried to keep it minimal enough to be functional. If you try put too much in the world, sometimes it just shuts down.” 

Also in the works is a music video for "In Your Arms" with footage from the 1944 documentary, The Negro Soldier.