Erin Durant's Sophomore Album ISLANDS Out On Keeled Scales

Erin Durant's Islands is out on Keeled Scales today, garnering a stamp of approval from Ann Powers and Robin Hilton at NPR Music, notable and essential release designation from Stereogum and Bandcamp, respectively, a deep dive in a rising feature over at The Line of Best Fit and beautiful reviews at American Songwriter, Highway Queens, Secret Meeting and Paste Magazine as well as Greil Marcus' Real Life Rock Top 10 at Rolling Stone. Pitchfork had published their review early with Laura Snapes saying that "Islands polishes Durant's sound to a resonant and gently rollicking gleam...Durant's songwriting is fine-boned and small-scale, and her lyrics are quietly epic." Erin Durant's sophomore record, produced by TV On The Radio's Kyp Malone, is an odyssey of sorts, ambitious instrumentals mix with a vague, but compelling, journey, allowing one to lose themselves in the worlds she creates and the sometimes surrealist stories that link these eight songs.

Durant previously shared the title track from her album describing it as being "about a convergence of space and time, being in two places at once, and still feeling the ongoing tug from both. It also brings together literary inspiration from Hemingway's descriptions of the sea and Joan Didion's seemingly romantic writing on 1960's air routes like "The Golden Gate". Hemingway has this way of being really close to the water and the elements, and Didion has a keen bird's eye view." Speaking to the song Gold Flake Paint wrote that "Durant's voice is full of weight, a gentle sentimentality that carries you forward and returns to you the places she sings of, places you don't yet know and perhaps never will, but ache nostalgically for."

This third single followed "Highway Blue", which was called one of the best songs of April by The Guardian who wrote that "[Durant] has the same flair for couching desolate emotions in jaunty sweetness as Jenny Lewis, Joanna Newsom and even For the Roses-era Joni Mitchell" while Stereogum said she "makes breezy, romantic songs that boast the vocal effervescence of Regina Spektor with the rootsy introspection of Julie Byrne." Brooklyn Vegan premiered the lead single, "Take A Load Off", calling it "gorgeous...with Joni Mitchell-esque vocals."

Rarely does an artist appear, as if out of thin air, with a full body of work where lyrically lush songs carry you into other worlds as if they were your own. Erin Durant's second album, Islands (released June 21 via Keeled Scales) is an odyssey of sorts, with songs that blur the line between reality and fiction. Co-Produced with TV On The Radio's Kyp Malone, the eight songs deliver clarity within mystery and adventure in their uncluttered vignettes.

Born and raised in New Orleans, Durant has been based in New York for over a decade, all the while keeping track of the intricacies of life surrounding her and diligently developing her craft as a songwriter and performer. Lyrically, she composes most songs on piano, songs that tend to unfold structurally like a memory or a scene from a movie. As a performer, Durant usually transports a 232-pound ¾ size piano to venues without one. To hear her play the instrument makes plain her case for the extra effort. Her music is rooted in an ongoing dialogue between the physicality of her playing and the high, clear tone of her voice. Enmeshed with one another, it's a display of an artist in full possession of herself and vision.

Islands sprawls out in front of you, weaving disparate stories into an overarching narrative. The songs touch on the ability to find meaning in minutiae. On "Take A Load Off" Durant tells a story of a weary traveler disoriented but pulled into revelry in an attempt to assuage their loss. The titular track "Islands" takes a similar tact, focusing on the conflicting process of attempting to find joy when joy seems lost. Islands is a continuously shifting landscape, with a knowing nod to the inevitability of these shifts.

Islands is preceded by Durant's 2016 self-recorded album Blueberry Mountain released on New York label Flying Moonlight. Recording to tape in her apartment, the lo-fi quality and stripped-down arrangements led Durant to better understand the core layers of her music and from there where she wanted to go.

Durant's collaboration with Malone introduced an expansiveness in sound. She knew she wanted the songs to be fuller. They welcomed instrumentation into the fold, including a complete rhythm section, the hum of pedal steel, and warm flourishes of brass and woodwinds. These are generous songs intended to breathe. They never fall into a grid. Instead, they pause and gallop, expand and contract, and pass through time unhurried.

Erin Durant's sophomore album Islands is out today, June 28th, via Keeled Scales (Jo Schornikow, Sun June, Twain, Buck Meek).

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