Hardworking Portland, OR indie songstress Laura Veirs has prepared her seventh full-length album for a 2010 release. The record is titled July Flame, but the name doesn't mean you have to wait until next summer to hear it. In fact, the album's title comes from a type of peach found at a Portland farmer's market.
As Veirs explains on her website, she saw the peaches and insisted that her and a friend each write a song about them. Eventually those songs turned into a full album.
"I'd been in a songwriting slump at that time and writing that song pushed me over my plateau and into a new place where I was surprising myself again," she says. "I invented oddball tunings, so I was really using my ear to search out new-sounding melodies and patterns. I wrote this album from a searching, soulful place. I hope it elicits a real gut feeling."
Composed mostly on her "crappy nylon-string guitar," July Flame was recorded in a barn behind Veirs's house in Portland, with producer Tucker Martine. As usual, longtime collaborators Karl Blau and Steve Moore lent a hand, but so too did My Morning Jacket's Jim James, who sings on several tracks.
Hell, James was even nice enough to slip Veirs a quote for her press release. "Laura's like the queen bee and my ear is her hive; she nests and makes honey in the hairs of my cochlea," he says.
And while there doesn't seem to be any tracklisting just yet, July Flame will be out on January 19, courtesy of Veirs's newly minted Raven Marching Band imprint.
As Veirs explains on her website, she saw the peaches and insisted that her and a friend each write a song about them. Eventually those songs turned into a full album.
"I'd been in a songwriting slump at that time and writing that song pushed me over my plateau and into a new place where I was surprising myself again," she says. "I invented oddball tunings, so I was really using my ear to search out new-sounding melodies and patterns. I wrote this album from a searching, soulful place. I hope it elicits a real gut feeling."
Composed mostly on her "crappy nylon-string guitar," July Flame was recorded in a barn behind Veirs's house in Portland, with producer Tucker Martine. As usual, longtime collaborators Karl Blau and Steve Moore lent a hand, but so too did My Morning Jacket's Jim James, who sings on several tracks.
Hell, James was even nice enough to slip Veirs a quote for her press release. "Laura's like the queen bee and my ear is her hive; she nests and makes honey in the hairs of my cochlea," he says.
And while there doesn't seem to be any tracklisting just yet, July Flame will be out on January 19, courtesy of Veirs's newly minted Raven Marching Band imprint.
