Valentine is âa record in pursuit of love,â says Courtney Marie Andrews. But love, it turns out, âis a lot more than I gave it credit for,â she explains. âItâs built over years, itâs built with trust, with changes, it becomes something new and unrecognizable, the deeper you go.â Written at the junction of intense endings and beginnings in her life, Valentine demands more of those we love and reveals a stronger, wiser, and more clear-eyed Courtney Marie Andrews in the process. It is both lush and elemental, precise in its construction but rich with sonic and lyrical layers. In love and on Valentine, there is no quarter for empty gestures.From her very first recordings, to her 2016âs breakthrough Honest Life, to 2020âs Grammy- nominated Old Flowers and her most recent Loose Future, Andrews has been celebrated as an artist who challenges herself, and who finds new interplays of Folk and Americana. âAs a songwriter you can make the same record over and over again,â Andrews says, âand Iâm notinterested in that. I make records to stand alone and stand apart from each other.â Co-produced with Jerry Bernhardt and recorded almost entirely to tape, Valentine features complete in-studio performances, hinging on performance rather than perfection. âWe thought a lot about Lee Hazlewood, about Big Starâs Third and Fleetwood Macâs Tuskâ says Andrews, and that constellation of stars is apparent here. Valentine feels elegant, disciplined and balanced but never cold, always vulnerable and human.âI was in one of the darkest periods of my life, and songs were the only way I could reckon with it,â says Andrews. âI felt cursed, and the only mental cure felt like songwriting and painting.â The near-death of a loved one loomed over everything, and while that person eventually recovered from both sickness and psychosis, Andrews was more sure that death was coming than recovery. Her grief was acute, volatile. The decline coincided with a new romance, but rather than lift her up, the two emotional poles seemed to bleed into each other to sow doubt, trouble, even obsession. âI was grappling with what I felt sure was death, and with the end of that relationship,â Andrews explains, âwhile I was also grappling with something new but quiteunstable. Here was this new relationship evolving alongside the collapse of another.âThe result was what Andrews describes as limerence, but a somehow empowered limerence: consuming and fierce, piled high with insecurity and fantasy, and filling every inch of a space she feared was hollowing out. It was painful, she says, and not far off from the pain of grief. But through her own exploration of music and art, Andrews found a way to grow stronger inside this feeling. âI didnât want to slink into my pain, I wanted to embrace it, own it.â The songs that emerged are devotional in their lyrics but defiant in their energy; itâs the very sound of a woman standing in her first wisdom.That high-wire balance permeates Valentine, and lead single âEveryone Wants to Feel Like You Doâ embodies it fully. A Petty-esque drumbeat marches under an indictment of the all-too- common type of man, the type who feels they can move through the world however they want without consequence. Here, Andrewsâs singing is classic honey-and-vinegar; she may soundsweet, but rest assured youâre gonna hear about it. âItâs this funny double-edged thing,â says Andrews, âbecause you do want to feel like that person, but youâre not sure if you should because itâs a person so disconnected, without a care in the world or a care for other people. I played the guitar solo like I didnât care in that song,â she continues. âI thought âIâm just gonnaplay it like I donât give a shit what anyone else is doing.ââ When Andrews sings âDonât make yourself small, baby, take up spaceâ on this summerâs âCons and Clownsâ, the softness in her voice lands as both a whisper and a dare. âLittle Picture of a Butterfly" is another example, one where the reclamation of power in the lyrics (âSoulmates what a pretty thought / but either you do, or you do notâ) mirrors the same in the music. âItâs such a trad song in a lot of ways,â saysAndrews, âbut we added flute, we added organ and all these Brian Wilson harmonies.â Those additions set the song alight, building on the insistent tempo and bassline and climbing to an expansive, sky-high final act.Album closer âHangmanâ opens with an echo and a note that hits like an arrow. Andrews sings insistently âtell me now, tell me now, tell me now,â but itâs not a plea, itâs a threat: I can love you with defiance, and without sacrificing who I am. Itâs not âlove me backâ, itâs âlove me or donât.â âKeeperâ is the only co-write on the record, and its backstory reads like a short film. âI was atdinner with a dear friend,â says Andrews, âand I was really going through it. I asked her if Iâm a keeper, and we both just started crying. We wrote the song then and there, line by line over dinner. I went home and put a melody over it after.â Thereâs a desperation to âKeeperâ, even in its lovely, melodic sighs. Itâs insistent, worn out from chasing a love that isnât sure.Valentine is also Andrewsâs most sonically explorative record â she plays flute, high strung guitars, myriad synths, and she draws heavy inspiration from her art outside of music. Andrews is a vivid poet and an accomplished painter, and across Valentine you can feel these disciplines interwoven, everything feeding the beauty and clarity of everything else. Itâs unexpected, then, that Andrews only recently appreciated the centrality of her power as a singer. âHistorically my favorite artists werenât looked at as singers,â Andrews explains, âthey were looked at as writers. And I sort of dissociated myself from singing; I chose to use it when it behooved me, but I wasnât connected with it.â But the more interdisciplinary her work became, the more that belief seemed to dissolve. âSinging is another stroke,â she says, âthe most direct line to your heart. Everything is color, texture. The way you sing can change everything, for both you and the people listening.â Andrewsâs voice is gorgeous and acrobatic always, but on Valentine it finds a newdepth, an assertiveness that brings new dimension to its biggest anthems and its softest moment.Andrews is, and has always been, unafraid to say the thing. Her songs are challenging but compassionate, they welcome us in but push us to venture out. And this, in the end, may do the most to explain Valentine as both a theme and title. Andrews rejects the objectification of love, the love filled with gestures and objects instead of trust, mess, and growth. In doing so, shedelivers her most beautiful and loving album to date.From the first moments of Goodbye Long Winter Shadow, layers of strings, woodwinds, acoustic guitar and the warm anchoring voice of Maia Friedman blossom as if to say âyou are here.â The lush arrangements and sage lyricism are an enveloping statement of intent. They carry the devotion to nature Friedman fostered growing up in Californiaâs Sierra Nevada with a new motherâs exploration of time and transformation. Friedman spent months developing the language of the album, pursuing the music she envisioned with characteristic patience. Produced with Philip Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Florist) and Oliver Hill (Magdalena Bay, Helado Negro), the result is chamber pop abounding with melodic intimacy, a world whereinstruments bob and weave around the heart-stopping clarity of Friedmanâs voice.Though 2022âs acclaimed debut Under the New Light was the first album under her name, the California-born, New York-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has honed her sound for years as a member of both Dirty Projectors and Coco, the shared project of Friedman, Hill and Dan Molad. Where her debut was built from collaborative improvisation,Goodbye Long Winter Shadow is a collection of songs in the classic sense. Intimate instrumentals punctuate its running time and emphasize the sonic palette of the orchestral arrangements. Friedmanâs lyricism and writing here is timeless, tightly composed and interspersed with surprising harmonic turns. If not for the heightened quality of its recording by Weinrobe, it might have been made decades ago; itâs Nicoâs Chelsea Girl for today.Goodbye Long Winter Shadow is full of elegant evolution as Maia Friedman, in the refinement of her craft and her new identity as a mother, finds new depths to explore. At turns it feels both fresh and like a private press record unearthed for cult listening. It marks new heights for a songwriter operating with supreme confidence, and she sings: âNow the curtains hang open / in the window, flowers bloom in their vase / for once in my life Iâm in love again / and my love is here to stay.â
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