High in My Balloon, the long-awaited second album by Thee Holy Brothers (aka Marvin Etzioni and Willie Aron), the follow up to their acclaimed 2020 debut My Name is Sparkle, which is scheduled for release on May 9 2025 on Regional Records.
Los Angeles-based power-folk duo, Thee Holy Brothers, has persevered through a series of life challenges and are readying the release of its eagerly anticipated second album, High In My Balloon.
Marvin Etzioni is a singer, Grammy-winning record producer, Grammy-nominated songwriter, and founding member of country-punk innovators Lone Justice. As a producer, he has worked with acts such as Counting Crows, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Stephen Stills with Judy Collins, and many more. Etzioni recently produced Viva Lone Justice, released on Fire Records.
Willie Aron is a respected singer, award-winning film/tv composer, and multi-instrumentalist. He serves as the keyboard player with psychedelic supergroup The Third Mind and has appeared with such artists as The Dream Syndicate, LOVE featuring Johnny Echols, and many others. Aron is also a founding member of indie-folk combo The Balancing Act. He recently served as producer of singer-songwriter Milo Binder’s latest album, The Unspeakable Milo Binder, which has received rave reviews.
Thee Holy Brothers - all of whose songs are written by Marvin - released their debut album, My Name Is Sparkle, as the inaugural release on Etzioni’s Regional Records label. The record is a song cycle revolving around a genderless character named Sparkle, who endures a series of hardships on an existential search for the divine. Upon release, My Name Is Sparkle garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews, including a five-star review from the UK’s RNR magazine who dubbed the album “magnificent,” while MOJO magazine likened it to “Tommy as if directed by Leonard Cohen.” During the recording sessions for the follow-up album - intended to be the second part of a Sparkle trilogy - Etzioni was diagnosed with cancer, while Aron’s spouse passed away from the disease. The resilient pair turned to music and towards each other during this difficult time, which strengthened their collaborative partnership and friendship. When Etzioni’s oncologist declared him cancer-free, he said “I was so elated at the news, I felt like I was levitating, like I was high in my balloon. I did what I always do: I wrote a song about it.”
Paralleling Marvin’s journey through cancer treatment, High In My Balloon chronicles the Sparkle character’s travails while dealing with the very same disease. One of the standout tracks, ‘Sunshine In My Veins’, is an upbeat account of the chemotherapy that coursed through Sparkle’s body. An accompanying animated video of the track by acclaimed cartoonist Bill Plympton will be released, as will a video of another key album track, ‘Guru Honk’; the song features mellotron by Foo Fighters keyboardist Rami Jaffee. Prior to the album’s release, Thee Holy Brothers released a special holiday mix - including sleigh bells and drums - of another standout song on the album, ‘The Holy In Everything’, which enjoyed worldwide airplay on numerous radio outlets during the Christmas holiday.
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