Nana Grizol, Toby Foster

Free.

press release: Growing up in the South, Theo Hilton found both lonely solace and wide community in music. When he formed Nana Grizol in Athens, Georgia, in 2007, he secured an outlet for expressing how confusion and constant pining became ingrained into a young, queer male in a small town. Despite Athens' liberal leanings and bevy of artistic collaborators, Theo walked in liminal spaces as a queer surrounded by straight people.

Nana Grizol's first two records Love It, Love It (2008) and Ruth (2010) chronicled that mixed experience. With Ursa Minor, the first Nana Grizol record in six years, Theo Hilton is unequivocally certain about who he is and what he wants to say. Through song, he casts a critical eye on Ursa Minor to concerns environmental, like the effect of oil refineries in the Mississippi watershed, as well as how neoliberal policies chew up and spit out innocent human lives.

He's loved and lost and been reaffirmed. The new songs reflect an artist fully aware of what he's learned, what's changed for the better, what still sucks, and what, exactly, we're going to do about it.