Tom Lark Releases Moonlight Hotel LP

Tom Lark (Shannon Fowler) has released his sophomore album, Moonlight Hotel. The record follows 2023's celebrated Brave Star and features focus track 'Dive On In'.

Previous singles 'Fuselage', 'Rock & Roll Baby' and 'Dumb Luck' sketched out themes around historical displacement and change. 'Dive On In' pivots within theme, to connect those tunes to and talk about present-day concerns.

"'Dive On In' is about climate anxiety, feeling powerless to say or do anything to steer the planet's course," says Fowler. "We can see day-to-day the effects of climate change and below each damning article is an ad suggesting you buy even more plastic junk off Temu.

"The bridge of the song expresses frustration at dismissing science as folklore or ghost stories. ‘Dive On In’ is almost a morbid slogan for accepting a depressing truth – but more to provoke the question: is this what we want?"

Moonlight Hotel sees Tom Lark explore the parallels between Fowler's family's historical displacement following the 1929 earthquake that destroyed Murchison – a pioneer town in the upper West Coast of the South Island – and his own following the 2011 earthquakes that levelled much of Ōtautahi.

Steeped in the Tom Lark persona's whimsical yet pragmatic sensibility, Moonlight Hotel is an evolution of what Brave Star introduced: sun-soaked odes to taking things as they come, and rolling with the punches.

The album has been announced alongside dates for the first live Tom Lark shows in Aotearoa since May 2024.

Earning him a finalist nod for the 2024 Taite Music Prize and Te Kaipuoro Taketake Toa | Best Folk Artist at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards, the Ōtautahi-born, Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist’s debut album Brave Star was a return for Fowler – who had previously released two eponymous EPs before taking time out to work on his pop craft as Shannon Matthew Vanya.

Brave Star also won Tom Lark an APRA Silver Scroll Award Top 20 nomination in 2023, care of its second single 'Live Wires', and reviews like these:

"Brave Star is an album adrift on a sea of memory bliss, cleverly produced and like a sonic mood-piece. It's an album which gives dream pop a very good name."
– Graham Reid, Elsewhere / The Listener

"Brave Star is the work of a well-rounded songwriter, as comfortable in the pop realm as he is crafting country-inflected folk-rock tunes, casual and confessional in equal measure."
– Tony Stamp, RNZ The Sampler

ARTIST BIO

Tom Lark is the musical project of Shannon Fowler, who also releases music as Shannon Matthew Vanya. Where SMV allows for pop indulgence, Tom Lark is an outlet for the artist’s indie sensibilities. Returning from a 7-year hiatus in 2023, with his debut full-length record Brave Star, Fowler returned to his first love – which turns out to be making sunburnt psychedelic folk fit for sensitive cowboys to meander and philosophise to.

Brave Star was a finalist for both the 2024 Taite Music Prize and Te Kaipuoro Taketake Toa | Best Folk Artist at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards – also winning the artist an APRA Silver Scroll Award Top 20 nomination in 2023 for 'Live Wires'. The record followed two eponymous Tom Lark EPs, which were released in 2011 and 2015 respectively. Those early tunes found a home locally on the Student Radio Network, and abroad on Australian radio station Triple J – where 'Something To Tell You' reached #1 Most Played.

Moonlight Hotel sees Tom Lark return with another watertight collection of folk pop hits with a country bent, through which the artist explores the parallels between his family's historical displacement following the 1929 earthquake that destroyed Murchison – a pioneer town in the upper West Coast of the South Island – and his own following the 2011 earthquakes that levelled much of Ōtautahi.

Fowler was born in Ōtautahi and relocated to Tāmaki Makaurau in 2012, after a stint recording in Berlin. He works from his Okie Dokie Studio, situated just off Karangahape Road. There he has produced, co-written and engineered tracks with a delightful collection of collaborators, including Fazerdaze, Georgia Lines, The Fuzzy Robes, Merk, Randa, A.C. Freazy, Belladonna, and the mysterious Rick Shrimp.

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