Today, Montreal-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alex Henry Foster unveils a new music video for the song “Calling Out!”, which has already amassed more than 200,000 streams on Spotify and YouTube since the single’s release on October 2 and has received widespread praise.
The music video features a character who embodies the chaos, surrender, and rebirth evoked in this new track from his upcoming album, The Fragile Beauty (Of New Morning Hopes), due out on October 23, just a few days before he heads to the Taragalte Festival in M’Hamid El Ghizlane, Morocco, where he will become the first non-African artist to perform there on October 31. The show will mark the opening date of his Defying Gravity Tour.
Foster describes the song as an entanglement of emotional layers. In one sense, it’s a reaction to “a social stream collectivizing our individual frustration and powerlessness.” In a polarized society of black or white, “‘Calling Out!’ is about breaking that monochromatic view of ourselves and the world we live in.” On another level, “Calling Out!” is something instinctive throughout our lives that calls us to shed the cacophony, a “conscious awakening that keeps arising throughout our journey and calls us to get out of our self-imposed affective blur.” Against the chaotic soundscape, the answer is simplistic: “freedom only involves us letting go.”
Yet the most personal take on the song, possibly the impetus for “Calling Out!,” is the physical and mental healing process Foster endured after emergency heart surgery and subsequent cardiac grafts, during which he died several times and which left him “impaired for years with the loss of a large span of memories and souvenirs, the inability to speak, and the incapacity to write, read, and articulate ideas.” A depression set in. He says, “The ‘call out’ in that case came from people’s affection and their healing love, one that led me from being frozen to awakened and finally risen, a process that could only take place once I had decided to embrace who I had become and to accept the new realm of reality it implied.” It was the process of “transforming a bleak emotional fatalism into a beaming resurgence.”
Following the release of The Fragile Beauty (of New Morning Hopes), Foster will headline Festival Taragalte, a nomadic music and culture festival held annually in the sand dunes of M’Hamihd El Ghizlane in Morocco showcasing music, poetry, and arts on October 31. His historic performance marks the first time an artist from outside Africa has been included on the lineup.
In November, Foster will tour throughout Morocco and a special date in his hometown of Montreal before returning to Europe as part of his “Defying Gravity” tour. Moroccan dates begin on November 8 following the festival, and the tour extends through December 12 in Paris with stops throughout Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and The Netherlands. A full list of dates are below.
Defying Gravity Tour
OCTOBER
31 – M’Hamihd El Ghizlane, Morocco – Festival Taragalte
NOVEMBER
8 – Aït Benhaddou, Morocco – Taman’Art Space
10 – Rabat, Morocco – Café de la Renaissance
11 – Casablanca, Morocco – Backstage
13 – Tangier, Morocco – Dobatek
14 – Tangier, Morocco – Riad Sultan
19 – Montreal, QC – M For Montreal / Hopeful Tragedy Showcase, Studio TD
24 – Rüsselsheim, Germany – Das Rind
26 – Munich, Germany – Kranhalle
28 – Aarau, Switzerland – Kiff
DECEMBER
1 – Hamburg, Germany – Nochtspeicher
3 – Berlin, Germany – Mikropol
5 – Poznan, Poland – Blue Note
6 – Warsaw, Poland – Hybrydy
7 – Prague, Czech Republic – Café V Lese
8 – Düsseldorf, Germany – Ratinger Hof
9 – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Merleyn
11 – Zoetermeer, Netherlands – Cultuurpodium Boerderij
12 – Paris, France – Nouveau Casino
TRACKLISTING
1. Sirens Call (6:08)
2. Good Omen (7:12)
3. A Spoken Whisper (8:57)
4. New Morning Hope (9:30)
5. Springtime (4:14)
6. Calling Out! (3:42)
7. Blue as the Rain (6:42)
8. Of Dreams and Ghosts (12:52)