Cornelia Murr Details New Album; Shares New Single 'Meantime'

London-born, NY-based singer-songwriter Cornelia Murr has announced the February 28 release of her new album, Run To The Center via 22TWENTY. Produced by Luke Temple (Adrienne Lenker, Hand Habits) the LP finds Murr delivering her most confident, expansive album yet. Across the 10 hypnotic pop songs is a fully realized portrait of a woman and an artist in her thirties, standing triumphantly in uncertainties, asking the crucial questions one needs to sustain a life: How can you fit everything you want into a life? How can you do this if you want so much? Run To The Center was born of a need to excavate her desires and experience of time, both in new songs born spontaneously out of an easy collaboration with Temple, as well as older songs that, for years, had been knocking around in her brain. 

Now, Murr also reveals a new single off the album, “Meantime,” of which she says “‘Meantime’ is about living in the liminal zone of knowing a given chapter has to end, but not being ready to end it yet. Clinging to it for comfort while you can. Still being able to access empathy/ compassion for the innocence underneath adult dysfunction. Yet the dissonance is growing and it’s getting harder to do so. Knowing the kindest thing is to leave.” 

Cornelia previously shared “How Do You Get By” and calling it “dreamy” Earmilk further said, “(it) layers an array of cosmic synths between a steady drum beat and a plucking bass. The track feels like an upward climb towards betterment, examining the burdens of economic issues and the search for stability and purpose.”  

Murr previously released 2022’s EP Corridor in 2022 and her 2018 debut Lake Tear of the Clouds, produced by Jim James (My Morning Jacket). For years, Murr tried to make another LP, but extraneous forces kept getting in the way, whether economic or global. But in the spring of 2023 Murr found herself working with her old friend Temple, adding to her impressive list of collaborators, which includes Rodrigo Amarante, Alice Boman, Reverend Baron, and Oracle Sisters among many others. 

The album’s title, Run To The Center, mirrors where Murr found herself during its creation—at the geographic heart of the 48 contiguous United State, the small town of Red Cloud, Nebraska (population: 948), There she hunkered down to restore an abandoned house, immersing herself in solitude and reflection. Music flowed out of her during this monastic period of stripping wallpaper in a derelict construction zone in the middle of nowhere. In the last place she expected, she was able to gain a vantage point of her own life and ultimately locate her own center, a grounding force that was inside of her the whole time. “Working on this old house as if it’s my body/If I take care of it it’ll take care of me/Stripping leaves off the centuries/Maps of other worlds/ obscured destinies,” she sings on the title track with a delicate nerve, like tapping a champagne glass with the tine of a fork before making a toast. She may not have answers to all the big questions, but for Murr, the beauty is in being able to ask.

Murr made the bulk of the record in the Los Angeles area and then Temple joined her in Red Cloud to put finishing touches on it.  She says, “we finished the arrangements and vocals in my then barely livable house with a makeshift recording rig I had set up.” And while Murr’s past albums, with her signature soft voice and celestial production, have been described as “dreamy,” the multilayered, revved up production of Run To The Center sounds more like waking up. The album is the most updated expression of who Murr is now, both socially and emotionally, particularly as questions around artmaking have become more urgent for her over the better part of the last decade. 

“As a young person you’re free to wander. There's a lot of power in that,” Murr says. “But there's an incredible sense of urgency that has snuck up on me. All of a sudden it feels like I must define my life in some major ways. Am I going to be a mother or not? If so, who am I going to do that with? If so, where am I going to do that? How am I going to afford that? Meanwhile, this feels like the most important time to devote to my work. Life these days is seemingly asking for my commitment to what can feel like contradictory things.”

But from urgency comes purpose: Run To The Center is an explosion that sounds like an exhale: the delicate, ethereal beauty of Murr’s music is fortified by a new sonic strength, expressed in more muscular production than Murr’s last releases, including louder drums and bouncier synths.The album swirls with a sparse and hazy futurism, exploring life’s biggest questions with the assurance of someone comfortable basking in its uncertainties. 

When Murr recorded Lake Tear of the Clouds, she had barely performed as a solo artist but rather had backed up other artists for years. That album marked a pivotal change in her life: the shift where she decided to focus on her own music, a shift of intention and identity. If Murr’s first album was about unveiling her own voice in music, her latest record is about exploring that commitment. 

The album’s radiant, seasoned production is on particular display in lead single “How Do You Get By?,” which explores the brass tacks of life, asking real questions around the economics and the personal currencies that drive you, whether it be money, fame, or spirituality. “In the dream I asked you it seemed kinda rude/But in the light of day I’m going to/How do you get by,” Murr sings. 

“I've found that people who seem to have wealth in one way are seeking it in another,” Murr says. “The song starts with curiosity in others, but it's also asking yourself: What is it that sustains you? What do we need from each other?

For all her sweeping questions, Murr brings humor to her songs. “Bless Yr Lil Heart” is at once a tongue-and-cheek and earnest cry in response to our unstoppable mercurial whims and urges. “Tell me how am I ever gonna make a real life/Wanting everything at the same time,” Murr sings in a closing stanza that’s as soothing as it is cathartic. After all this time, Murr has arrived, standing fully in her power.

Photo Credit: Rett Rogers

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