International Entertainment News: Nicole Atkins & The Sea, One of Rolling Stone's 'Top 10 Artists To Watch,' Gearing Up for 2008 National Headline Tour

Nicole Atkins & The Sea, One of Rolling Stone's 'Top 10 Artists To Watch,' Gearing Up for 2008 National Headline Tour

Critically Acclaimed "Neptune City," The Full-Length Debut Album From Nicole Atkins, Available Now

NEW YORK, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Emerging singer-songwriter-performer Nicole Atkins and her band, The Sea, will hit the road to headline a major North American club tour launching January 25 at New York's fabled Bowery Ballroom (please see full itinerary following). The tour will include a performance in Austin at the prestigious South By Southwest (SxSW) Festival.

"Maybe Tonight," the new single from "Neptune City," the debut album from Nicole Atkins & The Sea, will impact Triple A radio on January 14. A video for the track has been lensed by director Josh Forbes (The Shins, Cold War Kids, The Submarines). Nicole is scheduled to perform "Maybe Tonight" on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on Monday, January 7, 2008.

Nicole Atkins is part of the Barnes & Noble "Discover Music" series which will issue a CD, available exclusively through Barnes & Noble, featuring Nicole's "Maybe Tonight," "That's The Way It Is" and her cover of the Mama's & the Papa's "Words of Love." Nicole Atkins & The Sea will make a special in- store appearance at the Manhattan Barnes & Noble -- Upstairs At The Square (33 East 17th Street, New York) on January 10, 2008.

Nicole Atkins & The Sea toured extensively during 2007, completing a series of highly successful shows opening for Chris Isaak on the legendary roots rocker's summer tour before embarking on a series of concert dates with The Raveonettes, following three solo shows in September.

Nicole Atkins made her national television debut as a solo artist on the "Late Show with David Letterman" on Tuesday, October 30. (Atkins also appeared on Letterman on Monday, August 27, as part of a choir -- also including members of The National, New Pornographers and Broken Social Scene - - providing vocal support behind Canadian singer-songwriter Feist's performance of "1 2 3 4.").

Last summer, Atkins soared to #2 on the Google trends list (searches that have increased significantly) on August 13, shortly after an American Express commercial, featuring Nicole and her music, had premiered during a PGA television broadcast.

Nicole's MySpace page (www.myspace.com/nicoleatkins) includes "The Way It Is," the song USA Today selected as its "Top Pick Of The Week," applauding a track that "builds to an Orbison-like climax of longing, self-pity and melodrama." Nicole's page has received 778,000 plays and 700,000 profile views to-date.

Released last October, "Neptune City," the first full-length album from Nicole Atkins & The Sea, closed out 2007 as one of the year's most critically- heralded debut recordings.

The New Yorker (January 7, 2008), in the magazine's "Pop Notes Instant Reply" feature, singled out "Neptune City for its "...high chamber pop...Atkins's vocals keep the songs rooted in deeper traditions of girl group, soul, and even country. The record's highlights include the loping 'War Torn' and the ecstatic, anthemic 'Brooklyn's On Fire!'"

Rolling Stone named Nicole Atkins one of its "Top 10 Artists To Watch," praising her "voice full of longing and Loretta Lynn elegance" while lauding her "slightly surreal folk-pop songs that evoke moonlit walks with the shadows closing in."

Entertainment Weekly gave "Neptune City" a "B+" rating, lauding the album's "...funky bass lines and romantic film-score strings....It's heartbreak nearly at its finest and most cosmopolitan."

Spin.com loved her songs "dancing between Radiohead-channeling riffs and grandiose instrumental explosions" while the Asbury Park Press called Nicole Atkins "a must-hear for anyone who yearns for the nostalgia but hopes for the future."

Taking its title from the town on the New Jersey shore where Atkins was born and raised, "Neptune City" is produced by Tore Johansson (Cardigans, Franz Ferdinand, OK Go, Saint Etienne, New Order) and presents an astonishing cavalcade of the artist's deeply felt, finely wrought performances. Atkins, a gifted illustrator who studied at UNC Charlotte, brings a painterly quality to her exquisitely layered truly modern pop songs, combining elements of vaudeville, musicals, and atmospheric soundtracks with moody psychedelia, country, blues, folk, rock, jazz, girl groups, and an indefinable something purely her own.

Atkins major label debut EP, "Bleeding Diamonds," was released in 2006.

NICOLE ATKINS & THE SEA

Date City Venue
01/25/08 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
02/14/08 Manasquan, NJ Algonquin Arts
02/15/08 Cambridge, MA T.T. The Bear's
02/16/08 Buffalo, NY Soundlab (Big Orbit's Soundlab)
02/17/08 Toronto, ONT Lee's Palace
02/19/08 Cleveland, OH Beachland Tavern
02/20/08 Ann Arbor, MI Blind Pig
02/21/08 Chicago, IL Subterranean
02/22/08 Milwaukee, WI Cactus Club
02/23/08 Madison, WI Cafe Montmartre
02/25/08 Minneapolis, MN 7th Street Entry
02/29/08 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge
03/01/08 Seattle, WA The Triple Door
03/03/08 San Francisco, CA The Independent
03/05/08 San Diego, CA The Casbah
03/06/08 West Hollywood, CA The Troubadour
03/09/08 Dallas, TX House Of Blues - Cambridge Room
03/10/08 Houston, TX The Mink
03/18/08 Atlanta, GA EARL
03/21/08 Charlotte, NC Snug Harbor
03/22/08 Chapel Hill, NC Local 506