Ethan Gold: Making Sensitivity Cool

Ethan Gold is a multi-talented music maestro in a class all his own. The singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist thinks music found him just as much as he found it. Son of renowned novelist Herbert Gold, Ethan thinks his father’s success lowered resistance from his family as far as his creative endeavors went due to it not being a foreign idea. Growing up, Gold was drawn to the sonic exploration of artists like Brian Eno and loves the intimacy of artists such as Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, and other musicians who mix meaningful songwriting with musical integrity and creative arrangements. While being a fan of such prolific singer-songwriters, Ethan struggled when it came to lyrics. “It took me years to get comfortable with lyrics. I was always more comfortable in the musical realm and the lyrics were an afterthought that I didn’t really enjoy, but in the last few years, I find I write a lot quicker. A song is usually done in an hour or two,” he explains.

The San Fransico-based musician attributes some of his lyrical struggles to an unfortunate head injury he suffered in 2013, stating that since then he just doesn’t have the energy to worry so much about things. While he feels the incident caused him to lose parts of his personality he felt defined him, he found that his soul, a part of his being used in all his work, was filled with so much of the personality he thought was gone.

Earth City and Our Love is Beautiful

Ethan’s most notable work to date is 2011’s critically-acclaimed Songs From A Toxic Apartment and Gold is gearing up to release his next project, Earth City, later this year. The double-disc album expresses feelings of longing and alienation in our interconnected lives: a longing for other people and the feeling of connection and romance from each other and the world. “All of those themes work together as the record unfolds in a specific way. It goes from a little personal to searching in the city, to searching the natural world again,” he goes on to say, “I tend to go into an altered state when I’m writing, especially on a scale like this. Sometimes it’s me, but in a lot of cases, I’m picking up on the energy and communicating with…