Stream: Photo Ops, ‘Play On’

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Photo Ops

L.A.-based troubadour Terry Price has announced that he will release his third album as Photo Ops on Sept. 18. “Pure at Heart” is his first full-length since he moved from Nashville to L.A. in 2017.

His folk-pop represents a purist’s approach to songwriting — clean and uncluttered, irrepressibly melodic and sung with boy-next-door candor. The album, he explains, was inspired partly by driving across the western U.S. — the new single “Play On” has that open-road feel — and listening to Bob Dylan’s Sirius XM show, “Theme Time Radio Hour.” Says Price: “I was learning that what made a lot of older music magical, was the performers having to work with limitations. So you had to rely on human performance and the energy you could conjure in real time, in the moment, to communicate your idea.”

Such limitations came into play in the making of “Pure at Heart.” He and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Damphier turned the living room of Price’s 575-square-foot L.A. apartment into a studio. “We mostly stuck with the instruments and gear I had on hand and tried to make it sound just as inspired as when we had more of a traditional studio at our disposal,” Price says. “We nailed packing blankets to the walls and ceilings of my living room and created a studio in my apartment. This forced us to rely less on bells and whistles, more on the strength of the musical ideas and performance.”

Tim Davidson and Thayer Sarrano contribute some pedal steel to the album, and trumpeter Jay Jennings plays on “And Away We Go.” The album features the two singles Photo Ops released in 2019, “Palm Trees” and “July.”

||| Stream: “Play On” and “Time for an Innocent Song”

||| Previously: “Palm Trees,” “July”