Kevin Bronson on April 22nd, 2019

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Fogust is the conjoining of the words “fog” and “August” — and the name for the solo music of singer-songwriter and producer-engineer Scott Barber, a longtime presence on the L.A. scene. Headquartered in the Barber Shop Recording Studio in Echo Park, he has worked with a host of local artists, including So Many Wizards, Sean Gadd (ex-Grouplove), Ramonda Hammer and Barrie Rose, among others. Barber has played in bands, been a touring musician and worked as a composer for game developer Tiger Style, but when it came to releasing music he had written or co-written, something always got in the way.

It turns out it was often him.

“I tried for years to start new bands and have them take off,” Barber says. “Whenever they started going anywhere or doing anything interesting they’d always implode, or explode. There were albums of work that never saw the light of day. I’d play shows and afterwards be so devastated things weren’t going the way I wanted them to that I’d slide into depression, or get angry with the people around me. It led me to lose a lot of music and also some close relationships.

“At some point history repeats itself enough times that you really have to start looking in the mirror. Which can be quite painful. In hindsight I was being idealistic and controlling, with too many unrealistic expectations. I think I’ve come a long way since then.”

The first Fogust single “All of the Light” is a lush, cascading psych-pop song tinged with sighing melancholy that speaks to those regrets, and the desire for reinvention. “All I want is to turn things around / Please don’t turn me away,” Barber pleads as if redemption is only a chorus away.

“I’m betting it’s a feeling a lot of people can relate to, but everyone’s specifics are unique,” he says. “It’s kind of like looking into your past and having a desire for a time machine so you could go back and do things differently, maybe redo that moment or save that relationship, but knowing you can’t.”

Follow along on Fogust’s new beginning.

||| Stream: “All of the Light”