Following the release of her third studio album, ‘Mint Condition’, Caroline Spence returns to the UK for seven dates in October. Having won numerous songwriting awards from industry mainstays like the Kerrville Folk Festival, Spence has long been regarded as a well kept secret on the Americana scene, but the cat is now well and truly out of the bag, with Rick Bayles of Americana UK recently describing ‘Mint Condition’ as a potential album of the year contender: “Repeated listening to this new work reveals it to be a pretty much flawless set of eleven songs, ten of them written by Spence and the eleventh a co-write with fellow artist Ashley Ray.”
In bringing ‘Mint Condition’ to life, Spence worked with producer Dan Knobler (Lake Street Dive, Erin Rae) and recorded at his Nashville studio Goosehead Palace, landing a guest appearance from Emmylou Harris (to spellbinding effect on the title track), and enlisting musicians from Spence’s previous projects and live band.
For Spence, the making of ‘Mint Condition’ was an act of both self-reckoning and discovery. “People tell you to write about what you know, but a lot of the time I write about what I don’t know,” she says. “For me songs are a way to ask questions, and sometimes you end up figuring out the answers. A lot of these songs come from a very tired-and-worn place. There’s a sense of things not going my way and feeling rattled by that, but knowing deep down that it’s all a part of getting to where you need to be.”
Caroline Spence tour dates:
Wed Oct 23 – The Cluny & The Cluny 2, Newcastle
Thu Oct 24 – Night & Day Cafe, Manchester
Fri Oct 25 – The Glad Cafe, Glasgow
Sun Oct 27 – The Louisiana, Bristol
Mon Oct 28 – The Junction, Cambridge
Tue Oct 29 – The Prince Albert, Brighton
Wed Oct 30 – Thousand Island, London
