Serendipity can be powerful. When Jo Schornikow and director Noah Hanson arrived at a small-town fair in Tennessee to shoot the video for her new single ‘Visions’, they found themselves under a severe weather warning. Brooding clouds mass above the singer as she performs a rousing song in the tradition of Tom Petty inspired by an ominous cosmic confluence of events that makes peace with impermanence as the only constant. Serendipity indeed.
‘Visions’ is the first single from Schornikow’s new album solo ‘ALTAR’, out May 20, 2022, via Keeled Scales. The Australian singer-songwriter performs in the band Phosphorescent with her husband Mathew Houck but has set out here on her own to create a collection of songs named is as a tribute to the thread that ties together and celebrates all her various selves. The title also nods to its homophone’s definition of ‘change’ and the German translation of its truncate meaning ‘elder.’ It’s a joyously vulnerable pronouncement of her purposeful presence, a protean spirit transmitted. The seeds of this album were tended to by Jo through out loud, intense years of heavy touring, and quiet, intense years of early motherhood, growing through whatever cracks were found in those dual foundations.
The songs for ‘ALTAR’ were written between Nashville and Melbourne over the course of a year. It was recorded in Melbourne, Australia during a blisteringly hot Australian summer week at Hard Rubbish Recorders by Selwyn Cozens, who also plays drums on the album and co-produced.
This spring, Schorniokow will perform at St. David’s Episcopal Church on March 18th during SXSW with additional Southern performances announced. More tour dates are to be announced soon.
