Longtime Tucker resident James Pinkstone, a 22-year veteran of the Atlanta music scene, is releasing a 13-song musical compilation that explores his own struggles with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder on May 2, but listeners can get a preview of selected songs over the next month.
Pinkstone is releasing one single each Friday: “Hey Satan” (April 4), “The Terrible Future” (April 11), “Scoundrels and Idiots” (April 18), and “Tiger” (April 25). Finally, on Friday, May 2, “Worry Disco” will be available in its entirety for streaming and digital download through most streaming and Mp3 platforms.
Pinkstone was once the manager of studio Nickel and Dime Studios, a freelance writer for “Performer Magazine,” an adjunct instructor at SAE Institute Atlanta, and a composer for music used in commercials and promotional videos.
“Worry Disco” addresses the “inherent anxiety that beleaguers modern living,” and delves into Pinkstone’s own struggles with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and the resulting physical, emotional, and interpersonal tolls it takes, according to a press release regarding the compilation.
Pinkstone wrote and demoed more than 50 songs for “Worry Disco,” keeping only the 13 he considered most worthy and thematically relevant. The entire project took 10 years to bring to fruition.
The album was mixed by producer/engineer Kristofer Sampson (The Coathangers, The B-52s, Omni), and all performances and instrumentation are by Pinkstone himself with two exceptions. Joe DeRosa laid down guitar tracks on “The Terrible Future,” and Sami Michelsen’s additional backing vocals can be heard throughout the album.
“With synthesized music, it makes it easy to be a one-man band,” Pinkstone said in an interview with Rough Draft. “But it also makes it hard to perform live.”
“Hey Satan,” which drops today, is an appeal to, or from, the bad influences that provide people an escape from reality, he said.
“Worry Disco” is Pinkstone’s first release under his own name since 2008’s “The Ridealong.”
He said he already has an idea for his next album, tentatively called “The Good Fight,” but he doesn’t want another decade to go by before its release.
“Now that I’m in motion, I don’t want to stop,” Pinkstone said.
Pinkstone’s first single, “Hey Satan” can be heard here.
