Ezra Furman (Pronouns – she/they/her/them)
Through 5 critically acclaimed solo albums, 3 albums with her former band the Harpoons as well as creating the original soundtrack for the hit Netflix Original Series ‘Sex Education’, Ezra Furman has amassed an arsenal of much-loved music.
Exploring themes of identity, religion, political angst, love, anxiety, Furman has become an icon for the misunderstood and the oppressed. Her live show has built a fierce reputation with The Guardian dubbing her “the most compelling live act you can see right now”.
Furman has also written a book on Lou Reed’s classic album ‘Transformer’ and the relationship the record has with her own life and awakening as part of the 33 1/3 Series.
News
Ezra Furman tells us about her Top Five Records of 2022
Brooklyn Vegan
“As is widely known, I have the correct music taste,” Ezra Furman says, tongue perhaps in cheek, in presenting us with her list of favorite music of 2022. “Other people are in error. For example, the number one album of 2022 seems to be something called Mind-Nights by Tailor Swift. The most talked-about artist of the year is Conye West, who very clearly said ‘slavery was a choice’ in 2018, giving decent people reason to ignore him forever, and yet he is still selling lots of records and commanding the public eye. Meanwhile the transgender rock’n’roll artists creating the great classics of our era (Alex Walton, Asher White, Harmony’s Cuddle Party) go mostly unheard and unheralded.”
Ezra Furman: ‘I want trans people to know there’s a fighting chance’
i
“Furman, the artist hailing from Chicago, Illinois, has become defined by her directness. Her music tackles queerness and transness, as well as notions of young romance and mental health, often from the perspective of ripe anger and frustration”
“We’re Doing Zoom Therapy”: Ezra Furman, in Conversation with Sarah Silverman
Interview Magazine
“In All of Us Flames, Ezra Furman pens a record for the apocalypse, but it’s not at all hopeless. This apparent contradiction becomes slightly less mysterious when you consider the circumstances in which the album was made. All of Us Flames was written almost entirely during lockdown, when Furman was raising a young child and beginning to embrace her identity as a trans woman. The result is a powerful meditation on finding community in the face of solitude, with melodies that are at once morose and euphoric, all anchored by Furman’s silvery vocals. Her unique brand of intellectual but deeply-felt art-rock has won her devout fans, including comedy legend Sarah Silverman, who called Furman to chat about Judaism, baby jokes, and the overlap between comedy and music.”
Ezra Furman on her latest ‘All Of Us Flames’
NPR
SIMON: We mentioned you wrote these songs during the early pandemic, and I gather your house was very full at that time, right?
FURMAN: It was a bit full. It was me and my gay wife and our 1-year-old. And then our friend just had a shaky kind of housing situation, and she moved into our living room for months. And then also we had this terrible landlord who lived right upstairs from us who was – well, he was prejudiced, you know? He was not happy that I was transgender when we moved in. So there was a lot of love in our house. And then there was this, like, overhang of transphobia.
Ezra Furman All of Us Flames
Northern Transmissions
Ezra Furman has seemingly spent her last two albums in constant motion. She first traced a collection of Springsteen-esque stories of escape and romance songs with 2018’s Transangelic Exodus, then quickly offered up an incendiary punk paen to rage and fury with 2019’s Twelve Nudes. Her songs have often felt restless and nervy, finding her searching for peace and comfort amidst a hostile world that doesn’t want Furman or the people she loves to exist.
All of Us Flames Review by James Christopher Monger
All Music
The third installment of a trilogy that began in 2018 with the transformative road-trip opus Transangelic Exodus, All of Us Flames sees Ezra Furman deliver a disarming and defining set of punk-kissed heartland indie rock songs that give a bullhorn to marginalized voices.
The 10 Best Albums of August 2022
Paste
Ezra Furman knows that the joys and fears of trans women are doubled to either extreme compared to those of their cis counterparts, as violent transmisogyny continues to run rampant and women who share her experiences are forced to live in the shadows.
Music Review: Ezra Furman – ‘All Of Us Flames’
Blogcritics
New Music Reviews (08/29)
KEXP
This Chicago artist’s sixth album is a strong set of dramatic indie-rock incorporating elements of heartland rock and other styles, combining shimmering synths, guitars, piano and more with her grainy vocals and sharply crafted lyrics depicting self-love and connection as antidotes to bigotry and isolation.
ALBUM REVIEW: Ezra Furman’s All Of Us Flames is the New Modern American Rock
B-Sides
Singer-songwriter Ezra Furman has been creating rock and roll tunes since 2008, originally being a part of Ezra Furman and the Harpoons before moving on to sing solo.
Pitchfork Reviews Ezra Furman’s New Album, “All of Us Flames”
Pitchfork
Returning to familiar sounds of vintage girl groups and rock’n’roll, Ezra Furman writes trans pride and existential fear into an album that reveals the full strength of her vulnerabilities.
Ezra Furman writes simple songs “for the mind to stretch out in”
The Fader
It’s rare nowadays to find sincere protest music worth listening to. Even those elite artists who do make legitimately radical statements in their songs — Downtown Boys, Moor Mother, Special Interest, et al. — mix their full-throated activism with experiments in form. But on her recent single “Book Of Our Names,” Ezra Furman takes a direct swing at capitalism in the style of the earnest folk rockers who shook the structures of power over half a century ago.
Ezra Furman Breaks Down New Album All of Us Flames Track by Track: Exclusive
Consequence of Sound
Track by Track is our recurring feature series that provides artists with a space to take us through every song on their newest release. Today, Ezra Furman takes us through the powerful All of Us Flames.
Ezra Furman Builds a Shrine to Trans Survival on All of Us Flames
Paste
In terms of both the joyful force it exudes and the restrictive forces imposed upon it, femininity is inherently violent. Going back to the earliest examples of mythology, you can usually find some reference to an orderly, masculine representation of the sun, serving as a foil to the chaos of the moon that forcibly bends the tides and weather to its will under the cover of night.
Indie Basement (8/26): the week in classic indie, college rock, and more Indie Basement (8/26): the week in classic indie, college rock, and more
Brooklyn Vegan
Indie Basement’s quiet but very hot August continues, and this week includes: the swaggering debut album from Speedy Wunderground-signed The Lounge Society; new DFA signees JJULIUS; cinematic guitarist Rachika Nayar; Ezra Furman finds empathy at the edge of the apocalypse; Pantha du Prince gets one with nature; and ’90s electronica producer William Orbit returns with his first album in eight years featuring Beth Orton and more.
Ezra Furman: All of Us Flames
Spectrum Culture
The full range and complicated range of human emotions has always been part of Furman’s creativity — especially anger, which was mined extensively in Furman’s last album, 2019’s punk blowout Twelve Nudes. Before that was 2018’s Transangelic Exodus, an album that constantly felt like its music had been set ablaze in honor of the agony and ecstasy of queerness, as well as to process the understanding that “sometimes you go through hell, but you never get to Heaven.”
9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Julia Jacklin, Rachika Nayar, Stella Donnelly, and More
Pitchfork
Furman added: “I wanted to make songs for use by threatened communities, and particularly the ones I belong to: trans people and Jews.”
The 7 projects you should stream right now
The Fader
The singer-songwriter concludes a trilogy of albums that included 2018’s Transangelic Exodus and 2019’s Twelve Nudes. The new project, Furman says, is “a queer album for the stage of life when you start to understand that you are not a lone wolf, but depend on finding your family, your people, how you work as part of a larger whole.”
10 New Albums to Listen to Today
Paste
Ezra Furman knows that the joys and fears of trans women are doubled to either extreme compared to those of their cis counterparts, as violent transmisogyny continues to run rampant and women who share her experiences are forced to live in the shadows.
New Music Friday: The best releases out on Aug. 26
NPR
Ezra Furman – Stream the New Album Including “Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club”
Under The Radar
Ezra Furman has released a new album, All of Us Flames, today via ANTI-/Bella Union. Now that it’s out you can stream the whole thing here. Stream the album below, followed by her upcoming tour dates.
PRESS PLAY: New Albums out August 26th!
wxpn
On All of Us Flames, her sixth solo album, Ezra Furman completes a three-album story arc about queer agency and fury.
Reservation Dogs season two, Superman’s dog, plus new music!
Inlander
EZRA FURMAN, ALL OF US FLAMES. The trans rocker’s latest finds her skillfully brooding her way through songs about the internal support of queer communities in times of crisis.
Friday New Music – 8/26
The Avocado
Hello! It’s Friday, again! There’s new music out there, again. I’ve got Tiny Blue Ghost a band nearby to me on a label I like and I’ve been really enjoying all the songs they’ve put out this year. There’s also this Stella Donnelly to check out based on reviews, also this Cryalot album I don’t think I’ve heard of but I love KKB.
10 Best Songs of the Week: Magdalena Bay, Ezra Furman, Julia Jacklin, Dumb, and More
Under The Radar
Ezra Furman released a new album, All of Us Flames, today via ANTI-/Bella Union (stream it here). All of Us Flames includes “Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club,” one of its highlights that wasn’t put out as a pre-release single but is now eligible for Songs of the Week.
New Music | Friday Roll Out: P.U.R.E., DJ Criminal, Ezra Furman, Scarves, Vinyl Williams, Sélébéyone
Ghettoblaster
We all need to understand one thing; Ezra Furman is possibly an artist that’s the most unappreciated in our lifetime. The world needs to be covered in Furman releases because there’s nothing but quality work here. All Of Us Flames (ANTI-) is Ezra’s ninth full-length release, collaborative and solo, and possibly the most realized work to date.
12 Best Songs of the Week: Ezra Furman, Nilüfer Yanya, Belle and Sebastian, Wet Leg, and More
Under The Radar
1. Ezra Furman: “Point Me Toward the Real”
Ezra Furman has signed to ANTI- and on Tuesday shared her first single for the label, “Point Me Toward the Real.” She also announced some new North American tour dates. The horn-backed “Point Me Toward the Real” is about someone getting out of a psychiatric hospital. Furman’s lyrics paint a truly vivid picture.
Upcoming Releases
Consequence
Point Me Toward The Real: A Quick Review Of All Of Us Flames By Ezra Furman
A Pessimist Is Never Dissapointed
This is one of those records that’s as naked as it can be in emotional terms, and yet still wildly enjoyable and tuneful as well. All of Us Flames, the new one from Ezra Furman, reveals the artist reaching a kind of peak here. The ANTI- / Bella Union release stands above and beyond so much of what’s come out this summer, showcasing a kind of serious rock, that’s still full of the sort of pleasures as the best classic rock or glam.
Album Of The Week: Rachika Nayar Heaven Come Crashing
Stereogum
Ezra Furman All of Us Flames Review: An Honoring of Collective Loss
Slant Magazine
Ezra Furman appears to be in a constant state of escape. Her brand of soulful punk rock could be described as road music, with lyrics largely preoccupied with finding respite from a hostile world.
Next Week in Music | Aug. 22-28 • The Long List: 300 Releases On The Way
Tinnitist
Facing down fear: Ezra Furman explains why community is important to her when she’s battling prejudice
Jewish Currents
When the world was grappling with the anxiety and surreality of Covid in 2020, musician Ezra Furman also had to deal with being locked down with an openly transphobic landlord. “We did not conceal this at all, but he was like, ‘You didn’t tell me that you are trans’ and he was mad at us all the time and undermining,” Furman says solemnly over Zoom from Boston, wearing a pretty scooped-neck top, her hair cut in a bob. It didn’t help that the landlord lived upstairs. “It was just a horrible place to live.”
Zappagram #19
Zappagram
Ezra Furman: All of Us Flames • Julia Jacklin: Pre Pleasure • Muse: Will of the People • Regina Spektor: 11:11 • Stella Donnelly: Flood • William Orbit: The Painter
The summer 2022 albums you need to hear right now
i-D
Inspired by Bob Dylan and the enduring girl groups of the 60s, Ezra Furman’s All of Us Flames is an Americana album for a country on the brink, and the people striving to make a better world out of the ashes.
Ezra Furman – “Poor Girl a Long Way From Heaven”
If It's Too Loud...
There is no artist out there making music quite like Ezra Furman is. Her latest single, “Poor Girl a Long Way From Heaven,” Furman takes her trademark unique blend of indie rock and pop and injects a little bit of gospel or spiritual music into it. Furman’s music combines a vibe that is hers and hers alone with sounds that are almost familiar.
Ezra Furman Delivers New Song off New Album
Closed Captioned
In today’s music world there are interesting acts coming out. The artist who has our interests lately is Ezra Furman. The trans artist is flowing forward on her new release, and writing songs that extend across people of all types.
Ezra Furman Shares Video For New Single “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven”
Under The Radar
In a press release, Furman elaborates on the new single: “The spiritual life ain’t all pious platitudes. This song is about how weird it gets, when you’re in love with the Source of Being and She’s not texting you back. Ever since it hit me that I was never going to be loved and accepted on the scale of my pop star heroes, me and my bandmates have started to work on a different vision of pop, one more our own, one that gestures at the stranger truths of the human mind. Here we are in thrall to verbally adventurous nineties music like Bjork and Beck and the Silver Jews and them kinda non-linear geniuses.”
23 New Songs Out Today
Brooklyn Vegan
The latest single from Ezra Furman’s new album All of Us Flames is “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven.” “The spiritual life ain’t all pious platitudes,” Ezra says.
Ezra Furman Shares “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven”
Ghetto Blaster Magazine
Ezra Furman has shared a new single/video, “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven,” off of her forthcoming album, All of Us Flames, out August 26th via ANTI-/Bella Union. On “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven,” Furman recounts a childhood encounter with God, a gesture of spiritual yearning that flows into the album’s biblical facets.
EZRA FURMAN Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven
Le Canal Auditif
Ezra Furman présente un nouvel extrait de son album All of Us Flames prévu pour le 26 août prochain. Il s’agit du morceau Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven.
Ezra Furman Shares New Single/Video, “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven”
Vents Magazine
Ezra Furman releases a new single/video, “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven,” off of her forthcoming album, All of Us Flames, out August 26th via ANTI- / Bella Union. On “Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven,” Furman recounts a childhood encounter with God, a gesture of spiritual yearning that flows into the album’s biblical facets. Her voice resonates over building instrumentation, bolstered by layered vocals.
Tuesday Mixtape | 92 Songs That Are Everything You Need Right Now (Side 1)
Tinnitist
The 10 Albums We’re Most Excited About in August
Paste
More notable August 26 releases: Blondie: Against The Odds 1974-1982, Bret McKenzie: Songs Without Jokes, Eyedress: FULL TIME LOVER, Ezra Furman: All of Us Flames, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Let’s Turn It Into Sound, Laufey: Everything I Know About Love, Marcus King: Young Blood, Muse: Will of the People, Pantha du Prince: Garden Gaia, Pianos Become the Teeth: Drift, Tedeschi Trucks Band: I Am The Moon: IV. Farewell, Valerie June: Under Cover
Les chansons marquantes de juillet 2022
Le Canal Auditif
Ezra Furman poursuit sur sa lancée. L’artiste ne dérougit pas et continue de livrer avec une régularité impressionnante de nouvelles compositions. Et comme pour le reste, Lilac and Black respecte le standard de qualité.
BEST NEW SONG RELEASES OF JULY, 2022
Grimy Goods
As always, we feature new song releases from independent musicians and up-and-coming artists, as well as those widely revered in the underground and indie music scenes, with a couple big names or two.
New Music Releases and Upcoming Albums in 2022
Pitchfork
New albums are getting announced and released constantly. It’s tough to stay on top of it all. So that’s where we come in. Pitchfork is tracking notable new music releases with our guide to upcoming albums. In the coming months, there will be big new releases from Arctic Monkeys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dry Cleaning, Built to Spill, Sudan Archives, the 1975, Brian Eno, Ezra Furman, Julia Jacklin, Shygirl, and plenty more artists.
Slipped Discs August 2022
Maximum Ink
Electro-shocked glam-rock walks bittersweet glitter-swept runways in triumphant comeuppance and bruised ruminations while introspective pep-talker and hindsighted night-stalker Furman turns messy confessions into redemptive adventures.
All The New Albums Coming Out In August 2022
Uproxx
Keeping track of all the new albums coming out in a given month is a big job, but we’re up for it: Below is a comprehensive list of the major releases you can look forward to in August. If you’re not trying to potentially miss out on anything, it might be a good idea to keep reading.
Ezra Furman – “Lilac and Black”
If It's Too Loud...
The latest from Ezra Furman is what we’ve come to expect from the artist. “Lilac and Black” is a virtually genre-less song that borrows from many different styles while sounding entirely unique. There are elements of folk, pop, dance, punk, and all the multi-hyphenate genres in between, but it doesn’t truly sound like any of those.
Assets
