Juanita Stein America The Debut Solo Album
“A fab, dreamy journey into the dark heart of country-noir” (The Sunday Times)
Juanita Steinwill release her debut solo album, America, on Nude Records on 28th July 2017. Stein, who is already known as the singer / songwriter with Howling Bells, recorded the album with producer Gus Seyffert (Beck, Ryan Adams) in Los Angeles.
Following recent tours with Michael Kiwanuka and Richard Hawley, Juanita Stein will follow her recent North American tour with UK dates over the summer that include shows with Tom Petty in Hyde Park and at Cambridge Folk Festival. She then plays a brace of headline shows, in her adopted hometown of Brighton and in London, the week the album is released, with a full UK tour planned for later in the year.
The first single from the album, Dark Horse, is out now and comes accompanied by a Texan road movie filmed when Juanita was performing at SxSW festival earlier this year.
Watch it HERE
Says Stein of the album:
“This record is an ode to the dark heart of America. Of times gone and times to come. Dusty trails, a whimsical 50s suburbia and the haze of the 1960s. I’ve forever idealised American life – growing up in Australia we were fed the American dream through film and television. The dichotomy between what was real and a dream is forever intriguing to me. The music of Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield, Lee and Nancy and Patsy Cline all informed my musical sensibilities. They opened up this wide screen universe for me.”
An evocative and beautiful record, Stein’s honeyed voice weavesstories of heartbreak and optimism, from the unmistakably Western-influenced Dark Horse, to the moody love song, I’ll Cry. Florenceis inspired by a real-life photograph by Dorothea Langue, taken during the Great Depression, of the eponymous Florence Owens Thompson, a tale of a struggle for themselves and their children that’s as relevant to women of the world today as it ever was. The songs on the LP tell tales of characters real and imagined, Stein’s own experiences woven amongst them.
Juanita Stein grew up in Sydney with her parents and twin brothers. Her first studio recording was aged five, singing on a song of her father’s, and Peter Stein in fact wrote one of the songs on the album, the country music-drenched Cold Comfort (read Juanita talking about Peter on the brilliant My Old Manblog here).
Stein formed Howling Bells with her brother, Joel, and friends when they moved to London together in 2004. Four acclaimed albums followed, along with headline tours and festival shows around the world, and huge support dates including several US tours with Coldplay and The Killers. A break from Howling Bells around the arrival of her first child saw the first shoots of her solo work start to emerge, and now we find ourselves here. America, an unpredictable place, forever bound up in a uniquely widescreen hope and romance.
America tracklisting:
Florence
Dark Horse
Black Winds
Cry
Stargazer
Shimmering
Someone Else’s Dime
It’s All Wrong
Not Paradise
Cold Comfort
America.
UK Tour Dates
Fri 7th July Bluedot, Jodrell Bank (headlining 2nd stage)
Sun 9th July Tom Petty, Hyde Park
Sun 23rd July Deer Shed Festival, Yorkshire
Sat 29th July Cambridge Folk Festival
Tues 1st Aug BRIGHTON, The Prince Albert (Headline show)
Weds 2nd Aug LONDON, Thousand Island (Headline show)
America is released on Nude Records on 28th July, and will be available on Digital, CD (NudeCD24) and Vinyl (NudeLP24).