Anaïs Mitchel announces first solo album in over a decade
Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell (Hadestown, Bonny Light Horseman, Big Red Machine) has announced today her first solo record in over a decade. The self-titled full-length will be available on January 28, 2022, via BMG. 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 first single, “Bright Star.”
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 travelling 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.”
Mitchell will headline a US tour that kicks off in January 2022, where she will be joined by players from the record, as well as her own Bonny Light Horseman bandmates, who will also perform their own set. And today, she adds more US and UK/EU tour dates for next year.
Tracklisting:
1. Brooklyn Bridge
2. Bright Star
3. Revenant
4. On Your Way (Felix Song)
5. Real World
6. Backroads
7. Little Big Girl
8. Now You Know
9. The Words
10. Watershed
