Aoife O’Donovan finds hope in ‘Age of Apathy’

0


Aoife O’Donovan has made a career out of collaboration.

The Boston-born singer’s resume includes fronting string band Crooked Still, co-founding I’m with Her with Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz, and working with the Boston Pops, “A Prairie Home Companion”  and Yo-Yo Ma’s “The Goat Rodeo Sessions” (and on loads of other projects).

“I’m used to collaborating with people, and collaborating in person, making music with people has fed my soul,” O’Donovan told the Herald from her new home in Central Florida.

During 2021, that wasn’t an option. But O’Donovan felt ready to make her third solo album.

On Jan. 21, O’Donovan will release “Age of Apathy,” a sort of song cycle that carries the listener through our collective emotional ride during the past year (don’t worry, it ends with a lyrical and melodic burst of brightness).

Aoife O’Donovan’s new collection of songs, ‘Age of Apathy,’ will be released Jan. 21. (Photo courtesy Yep Roc Records)

O’Donovan tracked her vocals, guitar and keyboards with engineer Darren Schneider at Full Sail Studios in Winter Park, Fla. Joe Henry produced remotely from Maine. Guest musicians sent in their parts from Nashville, California, New York and elsewhere.

“This record is like a snapshot in time of making it with Joe Henry, having his unmistakable sound and spirit running through the record,” O’Donovan said. “All of his musicians played on it, but in these weird ways that wouldn’t have sounded the same if we were in the same room together giving each other instant feedback.”

O’Donovan has a deeply organic sound. Her roots in Celtic folk and bluegrass continue to inform her style. None of that trademark warmth or wintery mystique have been lost on “Age of Apathy.”

“It does kind of sound like a band,” she said. “It feels very tight and I look back and wonder, ‘How did we not do that all together?’”

The 11 tracks came out of a move from New York to Florida (where her husband conducts the Orlando Philharmonic) during the height of the pandemic. Pain, little pleasures and lots of introspection filled the songs O’Donovan wrote.

“Given the situation we are in as a planet, there are so many things to think about, so many things to work through as a songwriter,” she said. “Working on this record was me trying to grab the shards of glass from all the broken (expletive) around us and repurpose them into something beautiful.”

The record closes with “Passengers.” It’s a tender tribute to optimism and lifts the whole LP up and out into space to look back at earth, in all its magic.

“I don’t think it’s a downtempo record, there are a lot of peaks and valleys in it, and so ‘Passengers’ always felt like the end to me,” she said. “I thought very hard about the sequence of this record. As a writer, I hope the listener experiences this journey, and at the end of it you’ve arrived at ‘Passengers.’”

“It’s a song of hope,” she added.

And hopefully is how O’Donovan feels heading toward spring (with, again, hopefully a tour that brings her home).

“As apathetic as we may be at this time, as desolate as it seems, I think ‘Passengers’ is there to offer a catharsis,” she said. “It’s important that we remind ourselves that there is so much beauty in the world.”


For music and details, go to aoifeodonovan.com.



Source link

Denial of responsibility! Planetconcerns is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.

Leave a comment