- “In the decade since Anaïs Mitchell’s last record, the Vermont singer-songwriter created the eight-times-Tony-winning musical Hadestown and joined supergroup Bonny Light Horseman. Her new self-titled LP extends the murky, revelatory folk of the latter, with wistful reflection of the passing of time and free-falling in love.” **** Rolling Stone
- “...the remarkable specificity of her songcraft and the expansive, almost mythic scope she brings to her human experience as a wife, mother and 40-something woman demand to be taken seriously.” - The New York Times
- “It’s the first great folk album of the year, but more crucially, it’s a quiet personal triumph for Mitchell herself. Disclosing one’s own truths rarely sounds this graceful.” - Paste
Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell (Hadestown, Bonny Light Horseman, Big Red Machine) has released today her first solo record in over a decade. Produced by Josh Kaufman, the 10-song album also features core players including Kaufman, Michael Lewis, JT Bates, Thomas Bartlett and Aaron Dessner, with string and flute arrangements provided by Nico Muhly. Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” the Vermont-based Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folk song, poetry and balladry, and the 10 songs on this record are a perfect showcase of her skills. In addition, Mitchell has also shared the album’s stunning single, “Bright Star.” Listen HERE.
After leaving her life in Brooklyn at nine months pregnant and moving back home during the pandemic, the album chronicles Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house.
“During the first pandemic summer I was staying on the family farm where I grew up, in a little house that belonged to my grandparents when they were alive. I could see the stars for the first time in a long time,” Mitchell recalled. “I wasn't traveling anywhere, or even doing much of anything, for the first time in a long time. ‘Bright Star’ is about looking back on years of restless pursuit and making peace with the source of that longing: the Muse, the Great Unknown, the One That Got Away — those things that motivate us that we never can touch.”
LIVE
- 11/9, Botanique, Brussels
Check the album out HERE.