Juanita Stein will release her new album “The Weightless Hour” on 29th November via Agricultural Audio. The Howling Bells frontwoman will launch her fourth solo album with a series of in-store shows, before joining Travis on their UK dates in December. She is currently touring as support for Evan Dando.
“The Weightless Hour” sees Stein join forces once more with long-time collaborator, producer Ben Hillier. The pair worked together on 2020’s “Snapshot”, Stein’s third record, which was built from collected fragments of grief following the loss of her father. It was Hillier’s penchant for minimalism – his instinct for risk-taking while stripping sounds back to their gleaming bones – that aligned with her vision for her fourth project.
In removing most instrumental additions beyond the guitar (there are no drums on the record), Stein “made a subconscious choice to make the project entirely her own. In the space freed by the stripped-back instrumentation, her storytelling stands on its own. It is a record on which Stein has found that exploring a more restrained side can yield work that is armed with experience and yet is all the lighter for it.”
“I think making records is a really powerful way of letting go of experiences,” Stein notes. “I’m allowing myself to kiss things goodbye. I’ve finally learned to be okay in space and be loud in my experiences.”
The dates for the album launch in-store shows in November/ December 2024 are:
Wed 27th Nov – Liverpool, Jacaranda (Instore – Unplugged Session)
Fri 29th Nov – London, Rough Trade West (Instore – Unplugged Session)
Sat 30th Nov – Brighton, Resident Records (Appearance, Signing)
Sat 30th Nov – Lewes, Union Music Store @1pm (Instore – Unplugged Session)
Sun 1st Dec – Bristol, Rough Trade @5pm (Instore – Unplugged Session)
Ticket links for these along with those for her tours with Dando (October) and Travis (December) can be found here.
Stein has issued the first single from the album, ‘Mother Natures Scorn’, alongside a video directed by Orlando Cubitt. She explains: “As the title suggests, ‘Mother Natures Scorn’ is a song about our scorching of the Earth. It’s about recognising that we are in a moment approaching irreversibility. Even so, it feels as if the closer we ride into the storm, the more familiar we become with apathy, which is terribly frightening. I’m acknowledging the limitlessness of Mother Nature. It’s not self-righteous, I am not campaigning, I am merely recognising our intense vulnerability in this moment.” Watch it below.
