ACCLAIMED CALIFORNIA SINGER-SONGWRITER MATT COSTA RELEASES NEW HEARTBREAKING ACOUSTIC ELEGY, “LAST LOVE SONG,” FROM FORTHCOMING ALBUM, YELLOW COAT

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Dangerbird Records and acclaimed California singer-songwriter Matt Costa are pleased to present “Last Love Song,” the latest track to be lifted from the Friday, September 11 release of his brand new full-length album, Yellow Coat (pre-order/pre-save). “Some feelings stick with you forever,” says Costa of “Last Love Song,” one of the most bare and vulnerable moments found on this new album. When he first wrote what became “Last Love Song,” it had a different title and was meant to be an anniversary gift. Instead, it turned into a break-up song. With its almost church-like fragility, the song is a tender folk tune that speaks to the concept that songs can evolve and take on new meaning over time. Watch the video for “Last Love Song” on YouTube HERE.

Additionally, Costa will perform “Last Love Song” along with a few other intimate tracks as part of NPR Music’s Live Sessions on Thursday, July 9 at 2 p.m. EST from his home studio in Los Angeles. Watch Costa’s upcoming performance via NPR Music’s Live Sessions page HERE.

Produced by Alex Newport, Yellow Coat is a masterpiece of heartbreak, equal parts lost Sixties AM radio hits, folk-pop beauty and dark night of the soul music. Taking inspiration from Van Gogh’s Dear Theo along with John Steinbeck’s A Life in Letters, and stamped with the honesty and intimacy of something not meant to be heard, Yellow Coat is the product of Costa penning letters to himself about the end of a relationship that had lasted almost a decade.

Photo credit: Minh Pham

As his second LP for Dangerbird Records and the follow-up to his well-received concept record Santa Rosa Fangs – an album that revealed similar storytelling qualities present in the work of other likeminded American songwriters such as Kurt Vile and Damien Jurado – the forthcoming Yellow Coat channels Costa’s raw emotion into a 12-track collection of hooky love songs, most of them awash in strings, Mellotron, harmonies and groove.

At the time that Costa started writing, he had stripped things down considerably, not only emotionally but in terms of his surroundings. He had moved into a Laguna Beach studio apartment with just the bare minimum of furniture and instruments. Instead of a bedside table, a Wurlitzer Sideman drum machine stands.

After connecting with notable producer Alex Newport (Death Cab for Cutie, At the Drive-In), the songs of Yellow Coat took shape with Costa enlisting the help of touring musicians and friends from afar. From the insinuating acoustic riffs and lo-fi beats of the album’s lead single “Avenal” to the snappy fatalism of “Slow,” Yellow Coat is brimming with bittersweet narratives of love’s power to both soothe and devastate.

Life does go on, however. The album ends with the last song Costa wrote for it, “So I Say Goodbye,” which provides a sense of closure, its piano-driven tunefulness feeling both uplifting and melancholic. And while Yellow Coat may have started as an album about heartbreak, its sense of sadness, continued hope and perseverance also feels completely universal right now. “My songs have always been something that transcends a feeling into something that is healing,” Costa adds. “I hope listeners and fans find these songs as personal and honest as they are to me.”