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DAVID FRANKLIN COURTRIGHT
Brutal Tenderness (TODO)
Add date: 8.12.2025
Release date: 8.8.2025
Links:
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Instagram
Spotify
Tidal
TikTok
TODO Records
YouTube
David Franklin Courtright is an LA-based singer, songwriter, musician, poet, writer, and baker. Born in North Carolina and raised in Atlanta, David absorbed the eclectic range of musical influences the South had to offer, from Appalachian folk to Classic Rock Southern hip-hop.
As a child, David, who went by Davey, had a deep and mystical connection with the natural world and God. Raised in the Episcopal Church in Atlanta, David grew up knowing a version of Christianity that included queer people, and the head rector at the church (and David’s spiritual mentor) was openly gay. During this formative time in his life, he found that the queerest environment in his life was actually the church. A deeply sensitive and effeminate child, Davey, like many frilly young boys, grew up to learn to hide behind a shield of masculinity to survive. In many ways, his music is a continual dearmoring, a way of taking each layer of that scar tissue away and allowing himself to become even more vulnerable to the world. This is where he began to see how “brutal” and “tenderness” entwine.
In 2009, David began writing and recording under the moniker Suno Deko, which was the name he attached to early demos while living in New Delhi, India. For this release, David is stepping away from that project and releasing Brutal Tenderness under his given name. The reasons for this are many, but the main impetus was a desire to reach new levels of vulnerability and authenticity in his work—to be as sincere as possible. To do that he felt that a nom de plume stood in the way of that desire for connection and expression. In his striving for greater intimacy in the work, with the listeners and in the world, he felt it necessary that it come directly from him, no filter. While making music under Suno Deko, David had the chance to tour Europe with Wye Oak and Angel Olsen (who sings on the record), and has toured and played shows with Hundred Waters, Mitski, Moses Sumney, How to Dress Well, and Julianna Barwick. In 2014, he played the inaugural FORM: Arcosanti festival in Arizona. He has collaborated with Alex Somers, Chrome Sparks, Nicole Miglis (Hundred Waters), and more. He plays guitar and piano and sings. He wrote, performed, produced, engineered, and mixed the album (with some help from good friends).
Brutal Tenderness will be released on the brand-new TODO Music label, which is helmed by Simon Halliday of 4AD and Warp. This album represents a radical transformation that has spanned the near decade of making it. The record has carried David through the pandemic, through breakups with lovers and friends, through a psychiatric hospitalization and bipolar diagnosis, through his travels in Italy, Thailand, France, England, and his time living in New York City and Los Angeles. It was a companion, a place where all the complex and difficult feelings could live and become beautiful. It saw him through two major depressive episodes and their recovery. David sincerely hopes that his music can be a place of healing, a place to explore and visit the sorrows and wonderment of love, and the shape of one’s journey through both the divine and the hellish. He seeks dynamic emotional expression and as a poet believes that the lyrics are the true magic of any song. In fact, the song titles of Brutal Tenderness are a standalone poem by design. In addition to being a musician and singer/songwriter, David is a poet, writer, and baker, and is currently working on a historical fiction novel about his queer great uncle who was a hairdresser and served in WWII, and a book of poems written in the wake of his father’s death in December of 2024.
David is planning two release shows—one in Los Angeles at the St. Athanasius Episcopal Church and one in New York City at Union Pool.
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Spotify
Tidal
TikTok
TODO Records
YouTube
David Franklin Courtright is an LA-based singer, songwriter, musician, poet, writer, and baker. Born in North Carolina and raised in Atlanta, David absorbed the eclectic range of musical influences the South had to offer, from Appalachian folk to Classic Rock Southern hip-hop.
As a child, David, who went by Davey, had a deep and mystical connection with the natural world and God. Raised in the Episcopal Church in Atlanta, David grew up knowing a version of Christianity that included queer people, and the head rector at the church (and David’s spiritual mentor) was openly gay. During this formative time in his life, he found that the queerest environment in his life was actually the church. A deeply sensitive and effeminate child, Davey, like many frilly young boys, grew up to learn to hide behind a shield of masculinity to survive. In many ways, his music is a continual dearmoring, a way of taking each layer of that scar tissue away and allowing himself to become even more vulnerable to the world. This is where he began to see how “brutal” and “tenderness” entwine.
In 2009, David began writing and recording under the moniker Suno Deko, which was the name he attached to early demos while living in New Delhi, India. For this release, David is stepping away from that project and releasing Brutal Tenderness under his given name. The reasons for this are many, but the main impetus was a desire to reach new levels of vulnerability and authenticity in his work—to be as sincere as possible. To do that he felt that a nom de plume stood in the way of that desire for connection and expression. In his striving for greater intimacy in the work, with the listeners and in the world, he felt it necessary that it come directly from him, no filter. While making music under Suno Deko, David had the chance to tour Europe with Wye Oak and Angel Olsen (who sings on the record), and has toured and played shows with Hundred Waters, Mitski, Moses Sumney, How to Dress Well, and Julianna Barwick. In 2014, he played the inaugural FORM: Arcosanti festival in Arizona. He has collaborated with Alex Somers, Chrome Sparks, Nicole Miglis (Hundred Waters), and more. He plays guitar and piano and sings. He wrote, performed, produced, engineered, and mixed the album (with some help from good friends).
Brutal Tenderness will be released on the brand-new TODO Music label, which is helmed by Simon Halliday of 4AD and Warp. This album represents a radical transformation that has spanned the near decade of making it. The record has carried David through the pandemic, through breakups with lovers and friends, through a psychiatric hospitalization and bipolar diagnosis, through his travels in Italy, Thailand, France, England, and his time living in New York City and Los Angeles. It was a companion, a place where all the complex and difficult feelings could live and become beautiful. It saw him through two major depressive episodes and their recovery. David sincerely hopes that his music can be a place of healing, a place to explore and visit the sorrows and wonderment of love, and the shape of one’s journey through both the divine and the hellish. He seeks dynamic emotional expression and as a poet believes that the lyrics are the true magic of any song. In fact, the song titles of Brutal Tenderness are a standalone poem by design. In addition to being a musician and singer/songwriter, David is a poet, writer, and baker, and is currently working on a historical fiction novel about his queer great uncle who was a hairdresser and served in WWII, and a book of poems written in the wake of his father’s death in December of 2024.
David is planning two release shows—one in Los Angeles at the St. Athanasius Episcopal Church and one in New York City at Union Pool.