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Marking the arrival of a stunning new voice from the American South, Erin Rae will release her highly anticipated new album ‘Putting On Airs’, out June 8 on Single Lock Records.
In advance of the release, the track ‘Can’t Cut Loose’ dropped recently, premiering on Noisey.com, who strongly related to the song’s lyrics and music, stating, “Quitting is hard, especially when what you’re quitting seems like it has some sort of purpose you can’t find from anything else.”
Gifted with the unique ability to fuse musical genres and influences to craft songs that feels fresh and wholly her own, with ‘Putting On Airs’, Rae has thrown down a direct challenge to the stereotype of what a southern singer should be. Both musically and lyrically, she strikes a fiercely independent chord, proudly releasing a deeply personal record that reflects her own experience and upbringing in Tennessee and her personal struggle to understand her own sexuality. According to Rae, “this album was born out of a need to do some healing work in my personal life, to address some fears, and patterns of mine and allow my true feelings to come to the surface.”
Rae recently appeared on World Cafe Nashville, performing tracks including ‘Can’t Cut Loose’ and chatting to Ann Powers about the themes of the record which include mental health, personal growth and on reflecting the prejudices and injustices that she witnessed as a child growing up in Tennessee in the 1990s. Rae describes ‘Can’t Cut Loose’ as “a song about romanticizing addiction in all of its forms, from substances to love and relationships. I wrote this song to that incessant longing voice in my head that tells me I need something else to make me feel different or better.”
On the forthcoming record Ann Powers said, “Putting On Airs augments Rae’s natural grace with subtle strokes of Mellotron and pedal steel, recalling the dreamy folk-pop of artists like Jackson Browne or even the Carpenters.”
Rae, whose genre-fusing mix of traditional folk, indie-rock, and 1960s psych-rock production has landed her collaborations with artists like Margo Price and Andrew Combs – not to mention critical attention from the world’s top music media, including Vulture, Rolling Stone, NPR, and the BBC — is finally stepping out into the spotlight with ‘Putting On Airs’. A busy tour schedule, including spring support dates with the Mountain Goats and Margo Price, and an appearance at End Of The Road Festival in the UK, shows Erin Rae’s star is on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic.
Buoying the release is Rae’s reputation as an enthralling live performer, which has earned her the respect of Nashville peers and music notables alike, including Grammy Award winner John Paul White, who has signed her to his Florence, Alabama-based label, Single Lock Records. Rae joins a Single Lock roster that includes Nicole Atkins, St. Paul And The Broken Bones, and White himself, who said “When I first heard Erin’s compelling voice, I knew nothing about her. It was live, with no intro (she was opening for friends of mine), and I was instantly transfixed. I couldn’t wait to engage, and that’s something I very seldom feel, much less do. I was thrilled to find out her personality was as engaging as her voice and songs, and that she was looking for a home. I couldn’t be happier to be hitching our wagons together.”
The album was recorded in the dead of winter at artist’s retreat the Refuge, a former monastery run by singer-songwriters Cory Chisel and Adriel Denae, in Appleton, Wi. The environment created the perfect setting for Erin and her bandmates to track these genre-busting songs, using the chapel and other unique spaces within the cavernous building to explore new sonic boundaries, all while continuing to showcase Erin’s trademark vocals and the song-serving restraint first heard on her critically-acclaimed 2015 debut album, ‘Soon Enough’ (engineered and produced by Anderson East and Mike Rinne).
The album’s unique sound of the record is inspired by the innovative 1960s European production techniques from artists like the Beatles and Francoise Hardy, paired alongside the restraint and minimalism of modern artists like Angel Olsen, Richard Hawley, Twain and Michael Nau, bridging the sonic gap between classic songwriting and a modern indie-rock ethos. The album was co-produced by engineer Dan Knobler (Rodney Crowell, Tift Merritt) and multi-instrumentalist Jerry Bernhardt. Dominic Billett also served an integral role in the collective that worked together to create the album’s innovative and varied sonic pallet, providing the perfect soundscape for Erin’s soothing vocals, bathing everything in the warmth and purity that has become her trademark sound.
Alongside ‘Can’t Cut Loose’, preview track ‘Like The First Time’ was released in 2017 around her sell-out UK tour, drawing strong support from Spotify, as well as critical acclaim from British media, including the BBC and tastemakers Line Of Best Fit and Gold Flake Paint. Discussing the track, Rae explained that “I wrote this while I was kicking myself for acting against my own desires in an attempt to gain approval or validation to take the loneliness away. It just made me feel worse, which is a lesson I’ve had to relearn time and time again, and I think other folks do this, too. It’s that internal thought process of “if I just see this person one more time, maybe we’ll figure it out and make it work, and maybe I can make sure you think well of me, and speak well of me to other people.” Maybe that’s being too direct and clear, but I think so many of us have these little ulterior motives that get mixed in with attraction and lust. A driving force behind this record is the process of me trying to get honest with myself about when these feelings are at play, and waiting to act on them until I have more clarity and they feel like they are coming from a healthy place.
PUTTING ON AIRS TRACK LIST:
Grand Scheme
Putting On Airs
Bad Mind
Can’t Cut Loose
Love Like Before
June Bug
Mississippi Queen
Like The First Time
The Real Thing
Anchor Me Down
Wild Blue Wind
Pretend
TOUR:
APR 19 THU – 116 E. Mobile, Florence, AL, United States
APR 24 TUE – Joshua Hedley – Record Release Show. Nashville, TN, United States
MAY 15 TUE – Neighborhood Theatre, Charlotte, NC, United States (Support for Margo Price)
MAY 16 WED – Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw, NC, United States (Support for Margo Price)
MAY 17 THU – Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA, United States (Support for Margo Price)
MAY 27 SUN – Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL, United States (Support for the Mountain Goats)
MAY 28 MON – Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL, United States (Support for the Mountain Goats)
MAY 29 TUE – Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL, United States(Support for the Mountain Goats)
JUN 27 WED – Sh*tty Barn, Spring Green, WI, United States
AUG 30 THU- SEP 2 SUN – End Of The Road Festival, Dorset, Southwest, United Kingdom
www.erinraemusic.com