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JOAN SHELLEY
Joan Shelley returns with "The Spur" her first new album in three years. The twelve song set is a profound meditation on light and darkness, recorded in the spring of 2021 at Earthwave Farm in the Kentucky countryside.
James Elkington serves as co-producer (alongside Shelley) and the album features collaborations with Bill Callahan, Meg Baird and the British novelist Max Porter along with Shelley’s musical partner and husband Nathan Salsburg.
Shelley says: “The Spur” is the result of a period of opposite extremes: of intellectual hyper-connection and physical isolation. This album will forever be fused with the memory of our marriage, the birth of our child, and the intense joy despite the darkness”.
"The Kentucky singer-songwriter has come to fully master a sense of radiant calm." - NPR Music.
"Her poetic imagery is dazzling" - The Guardian.
James Elkington serves as co-producer (alongside Shelley) and the album features collaborations with Bill Callahan, Meg Baird and the British novelist Max Porter along with Shelley’s musical partner and husband Nathan Salsburg.
Shelley says: “The Spur” is the result of a period of opposite extremes: of intellectual hyper-connection and physical isolation. This album will forever be fused with the memory of our marriage, the birth of our child, and the intense joy despite the darkness”.
"The Kentucky singer-songwriter has come to fully master a sense of radiant calm." - NPR Music.
"Her poetic imagery is dazzling" - The Guardian.
TRACK LISTING
1. Forever Blues
2. The Spur
3. Home
4. Amberlit Morning
5. Like The Thunder
6. When The Light Is Dying
7. Breath For The Boy
8. Fawn
9. Why Not Liver Here
10. Bolt
11. Between Rock & Sky
12. Completely
Joan Shelley’s out of print 2014 album is repackaged here in a deluxe tip-on jacket and pressed on purple vinyl. Limited to 2,000 copies worldwide.
Electric Ursa was recorded out of the spotlight in Louisville, Kentucky. A quiet, 8 song record which owes much to the post-rock history of its hometown on songs like “Something Small” and “Rising Air”, while “River Low” and “Electric Ursa” hint at the brilliant Over and Even waiting just around the corner. Electric Ursa brought Shelley to the national stage. Rolling Stone noted that the songs project “a huge, resplendently pained serenity” while Pitchfork declared that while the album “isn’t [her] debut, it is her absolute arrival.”
Electric Ursa was recorded out of the spotlight in Louisville, Kentucky. A quiet, 8 song record which owes much to the post-rock history of its hometown on songs like “Something Small” and “Rising Air”, while “River Low” and “Electric Ursa” hint at the brilliant Over and Even waiting just around the corner. Electric Ursa brought Shelley to the national stage. Rolling Stone noted that the songs project “a huge, resplendently pained serenity” while Pitchfork declared that while the album “isn’t [her] debut, it is her absolute arrival.”
TRACK LISTING
1. Something Small
2. Rising Air
3. First Of August
4. River Low
5. Remedios
6. Long Way To Night
7. Moss & Marrow
8. Electric Ursa
Pressed on Sea Green vinyl, packaged in a deluxe tip-on jacket, and limited to 2,000 copies worldwide.
The debut album by Joan Shelley pressed on vinyl for the first time. Originally released in 2012 and long-elusive to fans, Ginko is the starting point for Shelley, now revered for her songwriting, “dazzling poetic imagery” (The Guardian) and “radiant sense of calm” (NPR Music). Standout tracks “By The Ohio” and “Siren” show what is to come, while “Sure As Night” was her first collaboration with guitarist Nathan Salsburg.
The debut album by Joan Shelley pressed on vinyl for the first time. Originally released in 2012 and long-elusive to fans, Ginko is the starting point for Shelley, now revered for her songwriting, “dazzling poetic imagery” (The Guardian) and “radiant sense of calm” (NPR Music). Standout tracks “By The Ohio” and “Siren” show what is to come, while “Sure As Night” was her first collaboration with guitarist Nathan Salsburg.
TRACK LISTING
1. Ginko
2. Ice
3. The Pain For Your Pleasure
4. Siren
5. Sure As Night
6. Into The Sea
7. Sweet Dark-Haired Man
8. Your Doll
9. The Door
10. Unbound
11. By The Ohio
Much of this album was recorded in Iceland. Breath warm from singing rises into frozen air. Atomized. A million bright blue crystals — the fractal branching of the lungs — drift back to earth. Radiant, refracting. Clear notes melt like perfect soft snow. Straight lines curve and curve again.
Much of this album was recorded in Iceland, but Joan Shelley wrote these songs in Kentucky. That’s the dirt clinging to their roots. The wind blowing through Osage orange and pine trees is the joy and ache and urgency of these songs. It’s the silence and the music. It’s the space between time and words and the stillness in Joan’s voice. The world spins more slowly. Moss overtakes a fallen tree.
Kentucky is where we plant seeds of regret and stay to watch them flower.
Maybe Mark Twain said that Kentucky (always five years behind the times) was the perfect place to ride out the apocalypse. Maybe it’s twenty years. Maybe it’s apocryphal. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
“And oh, Kentucky
Stays in my mind it’s sweet to be five years behind
That’s where I’ll be
When the seas rise
Holding my dear friends and drinking wine...”
Maybe the world outside has already vaporized. Maybe we’re already living on borrowed time. Nathan Salsburg’s guitar pours out clean as water through his fingers, turning over every smooth stone. Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s harmonies stretch time tight enough to break without breaking. Joan’s voice calls us back. Birds are singing outside. Insistent. Don’t miss what’s right in front of you.
Much of this album was recorded in Iceland, but Joan Shelley wrote these songs in Kentucky. That’s the dirt clinging to their roots. The wind blowing through Osage orange and pine trees is the joy and ache and urgency of these songs. It’s the silence and the music. It’s the space between time and words and the stillness in Joan’s voice. The world spins more slowly. Moss overtakes a fallen tree.
Kentucky is where we plant seeds of regret and stay to watch them flower.
Maybe Mark Twain said that Kentucky (always five years behind the times) was the perfect place to ride out the apocalypse. Maybe it’s twenty years. Maybe it’s apocryphal. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
“And oh, Kentucky
Stays in my mind it’s sweet to be five years behind
That’s where I’ll be
When the seas rise
Holding my dear friends and drinking wine...”
Maybe the world outside has already vaporized. Maybe we’re already living on borrowed time. Nathan Salsburg’s guitar pours out clean as water through his fingers, turning over every smooth stone. Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s harmonies stretch time tight enough to break without breaking. Joan’s voice calls us back. Birds are singing outside. Insistent. Don’t miss what’s right in front of you.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: We've had a few great country albums in in the past few weeks (either that or my country appreciation is inexplicably growing), with Lillie Mae's 'Other Girls' on Third Man last week, and now this tender beauty possibly trumping it, all shimmering guitars and soaring vocals over the balmy shimmering Americana-isms working their way underneath.TRACK LISTING
1 Haven
2 Coming Down For You
3 Teal
4 Cycle
5 When What It Is
6 The Fading
7 The Sway
8 Awake
9 Stay All Night
10 Tell Me Something
11 High On The Mountain
12 Any Day Now