Darren Ockert on The Rain From London EP

 

For Immediate Release:

“Charitable, well-traveled, open-minded and foreign, Ockert seems like a well-rounded individual who can’t get much better. But he can, and he will. “ - NY Social Status

Indie-pop artist, English-transplant, singer-producer and hyphen-aficionado Darren Ockert is channeling the 80’s in South Florida with his new EP The Rain From London, an ode to his birthplace and throwback to the decade of Madonna and Miami Vice.

An openly gay artist from the start of his career, Ockert was nominated for a 2006 OutMusic Award: Outstanding New Recording – Debut Male for his album Anything Is Possible, recorded after relocating from England to New York. He was subsequently featured in the international publications of Genre and Instinct and his 2009 music video "Celebrity du Jour" was in rotation on MTV Logo’s NewNowNext PopLab. Ockert is a voting member of The Recording Academy (The Grammys) and The Songwriters Hall Of Fame, a member of The American Society Of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and also member of the Producers & Engineers Wing of The Grammys.

Produced by Ockert, mixed by Michael Waxman (Nathan Leigh Jones) and beautifully mastered by Vic Anesini at Sony Music Entertainment’s Battery Studios, The Rain From London is inspired by 80s Brit-Pop acts such as Wham!, Eurythmics, Kylie Minogue and Frankie Goes to Hollywood that Ockert grew up listening to in the small city of Lincoln, England.

The four-song EP boasts a lyrical nuance that was missing from such acts, as Ockert writes about moving on from past love, finding new love and, on the title track, feeling homesick for the green pastures and summer rains of his former country. “Growing up in England, I always wanted to live somewhere warm and sunny where the rain isn’t such a nuisance,” said Ockert. “It turns out, rain is just a part of the British experience and sunshine is a state of mind.”

The video for “The Rain From London” will be released in the fall of 2012. Be on the lookout for much more from Darren Ockert before the end of the year.