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Mar 30, 2021 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Chance Edwards

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Tolan Shaw has returned with his new single, “Slide Away,” premiering early with Under the Radar. The well-traveled singer/songwriter spent 2020 unexpectedly grounded in his new Nashville home, resulting in a new series of singles in 2021 – “Trigger”, “Craving”, and, finally, “Slide Away.”

With his new series of singles, Shaw hopes to offer an escape first and foremost, wrapping pop rock melodies in emotive songwriting. “I want listeners to know other people feel the emotions they feel, and I want to show that some of those more hidden feelings are ok to talk about” explains Shaw. “But I also just want them to have fun.”

“Slide Away” takes Shaw’s music down a meticulously crafted nocturnal turn, languishing in cool melodies and honeyed vocals. Of his latest singles, Shaw says this was the only one written in quarantine and that isolation forms one of the central facets of the track. Shaw opens the track leaning into solitude—“Don’t want to pick up the phone/Don’t want to talk to no one tonight/Put on a pair of headphones/Just want to sit and zone out.” Spacious synth chords are joined by driving electronic percussion, drawing the listener deep into the song’s moody reverie. Shaw not only reflects on these moments but provides the perfect soundtrack to them with “Slide Away.”

Shaw says of the track, “The words or emotions I’d use to describe “Slide Away” are “over-it” and “existential,” both of which I was very much feeling the night I wrote it. Just picture a sorta bummed out guy (early on in lockdown), in a dark bedroom studio, plucking on an electric guitar and messing with reverse delay effects, smoking weed (not something I do crazy often), looking out at the stars. That’s where I was at the time. I was questioning life. I was over being pent up. I was wondering what all this work and stress we put ourselves through goes towards and what we really get out of it. You know when you just don’t want to talk to anybody, don’t want to do anything, just want to kinda sit in that space? That is “Slide Away.” Honestly, I’m a generally happy guy, but this song came from too real a place not to put out and I know people can relate to that feeling. It’s also the first song I’ve released that I produced myself. Listen to “Slide Away” below.