Fred Abong - Blindness

Alternative crooner-philosopher Fred Abong presents his new 'Blindness' album, released via Moochin' About Records. Previewed by the lead track 'Heaven', these ten tracks comprise his eighth long-player to date. At the same time, he's shared a new video for the album's title track.

Now based in New Orleans, Abong is no stranger to the US music scene, having got his musical start in the 1980’s on the Rhode Island hardcore punk scene. In the early 1990s, he played bass for Throwing Muses and then Belly.

Putting music on hold for academic pursuits, he then earned a PhD in Humanities and taught at various universities for eight years before returning to music. Now back as a solo artist, Abong also plays bass in the Kristin Hersh Electric Trio. He has also been a practicing Vedic astrologer for the past 20 plus years.

"This album is a first for me. Composed entirely on keyboard/piano, I wanted to challenge my songwriting, to not rely on guitar to guide or limit what showed up. The first and biggest problem with this is that I don’t play piano. So I really had to have faith that the gods of music would show mercy on me … would be there for me if I was earnestly there for them. As always, I’ll let the listener decide whether or not my instrumental humility was divinely rewarded, but I personally feel that the Blindness album, if nothing else, reflects a willingness to follow artistic intuition wherever it may lead. This is something of a credo for me. In love as in music, I follow my heart," says Fred Abong.

A Filipino-American singer-songwriter, Abong's music has a raw and unpolished production aesthetic with an overall direct, though deceptively imaginative and oblique, presentation. Taking a detour from the musical road most traveled, Abong wrote the material for this album on the piano rather than bass or guitar, effectively opening up a new compositional and emotional space for him.

“Love is blind. Is this a truism or just true? I suppose it depends on where you are on the romantic journey. If the romance is fresh, then infatuation and sexual desire are usually foregrounded. You are ‘blinded by love’ and can see nothing else. Anyone who’s ever fallen in love is familiar with this. It’s dizzying," says Abong.

"As things progress, or in order for things to progress, another type of blindness must develop. Being blinded by love, in this case, means accepting or even loving difference - being blind to competing or incompatible attitudes. It means placing the other’s happiness on an equal footing to one’s own. It’s not dizzying; it’s grounding. True love, then, combines both forms of blindness. It’s ‘blind in both eyes’, you could say. I think Blindness, both the song and the album, reflects (among other things) a pursuit of this total love blindness - it’s hopeful and aspirational in that sense.”

Between the bookends of the new 'Blindness' album and 'Homeless', the first set of songs as a solo artist, originally self-released in 2018, Abong has released several critically acclaimed records, including his self-recorded 2023 'Fear Pageant' and earlier albums 'Yellowthroat', 'Pulsing' and 'Our Mother of Perpetual Help'.

On May 9, the 'Blindness' album will be released on CD, along with his 'Homeless' album, both of which can be pre-ordered via the label's Bandcamp. It will also be available everywhere digitally, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp.