Eliza Hardy Jones' Third Single 'Long Winter Shadows' is Out Now

Multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, producer, vocal coach and quilter, Eliza Hardy Jones, will release her sophomore solo LP, Pickpocket, on Friday, April 19th. The album’s third single, “Long Winter Shadows,” joins singles, “This is the Year,” and “Counterfeit,” all released ahead of the album. Pickpocket will be available worldwide on all platforms this Friday and 140-gram translucent lavender vinyl are also now available exclusively through The Record Stop.
 
“Long Winter Shadows” is a song about trying to survive the darkest moments of our lives the way that nature survives the winter,” explains the songwriter. “It’s about patience and hope. I wrote the lyrics while walking with my husband at John Heinz Wildlife Refuge in Philadelphia and watching our shadows stretch out long and thin in the late day winter sun. Matt Musty sent along drums and some resynator synths. And just when I thought it was finished, my dear friend Daniel Hart (composer and extraordinary musician) sent the string tracks that lift the song to its swirling dizzy finish.” 

The ten original songs on Pickpocket, explore surviving grief, birth, death, and the innate humanness surrounding a challenging and personal journey to becoming a parent. It was written, recorded, and produced by Eliza with production assistance from the multitalented producer, engineer, and instrumentalist, Nick Krill -- who also mixed the record.  Additional musicians recorded their parts in bedrooms across space and time.
 
With a sonic palette including ethereal folk coupled with indie rock undertones, Pickpocket finds the songwriter calling upon her musical friends, including Charlie Hall, Dave Hartley, and Anthony LaMarca (all of whom are collaborators in The War on Drugs), Daniel Hart (St. Vincent, Dark Rooms), Matt Musty (Grace Potter, Train),  Brandon Beaver (Buried Beds, mewithoutYou), Severin Tucker (Nightlands, Silver Ages), Benny Yurco (Grace Potter), Tim Deaux (The Whigs, Grace Potter, Kings of Leon), Jordan West (Grace Potter, Cam) and Ben Alleman (Dr. John, Grace Potter, Jenny Lewis) to help bring this collection of songs to life.

“This is an album about grief or more accurately, about surviving grief,” says Eliza. “It's about my experience of living in this world and in this body and doing my best to find purpose and joy. I made most of it sitting in my little home studio, surrounded by my quilt projects. I would send tracks off to friends around the country, folks who I played with in Buried Beds, Grace Potter's band and The War on Drugs, and they would send back little pieces of themselves, drums and bass and guitars and violins and synths, all kinds of love to help me fully realize this album.”
 

About Eliza Hardy Jones

Eliza Hardy Jones is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, vocal coach, and quilter.  In the early 2000s, Eliza began her professional career in the Philadelphia music scene with her band Buried Beds and in addition to her solo output, worked with several notable artists. She has been a touring member of many bands, including Grace Potter and Iron & Wine, before joining The War on Drugs in 2022.  Following the release of her first debut solo album in 2016, Because Become, Eliza focused on a large multidisciplinary art project interviewing women in the U.S. and Russia, in which she recorded folk songs, and then transformed them into a series of ten handcrafted quilts that are now part of the permanent collection of the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. She also co-wrote the musical Lashed but not Leashed (2019) with legendary Philadelphia drag queen Martha Graham Cracker and lent her vocal coaching skills to members of the NFL Philadelphia Eagles aka The Philly Specials, for their Billboard chart topping holiday albums, A Philly Special Christmas (2022) and A Philly Special Christmas Special (2023). She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and infant son.