Joe Grass Reveals Details of 'Falcon's Heart' LP

Montreal's Joe Grass today reveals details of his forthcoming solo album, Falcon's Heart, including the stunning album artwork by xx and full album track-listing which features the new single "Touch the Void". Grass will play the Montreal International Jazz Festival on July 4th. Falcon's Heart is set for release via Simone Records on May 26th.

Speaking on his new single, Grass explains, "Touch the Void is a depiction of someone observing their memories disappear. It's a song about the fragility and resilience of memories as experienced by an individual and the community surrounding them."

Grass has been writing and recording his own music for almost 20 years, but since moving from Moncton, NB to Montreal he's also become one of this city's most sought-after musical partners. His credits include work with Lhasa, the Barr Brothers and his avant-pop band Klaus; he helped write and arrange Patrick Watson's Love Songs for Robots and Wave and co-produced Elisapie's Polaris- and Juno-nominated LP, The Ballad of the Runaway Girl, and her forthcoming album Inuktitut.

"I thought that if I could write a simple song, the rest would follow. And I learned that from working with other people," Grass says. Those partnerships with Patrick Watson, The Barr Brothers and Elisapie, among others, have taught him how to unmake a tune-picking up someone else's idea and finding new ways to fill it in. With Falcon's Heart, he tried to bring that same process to his own work.

While Grass began writing Falcon's Heart in the spirit of John Prine and George Jones, the finished album evokes the wider spectrum of Grass's affections: from Tom Zé and Ry Cooder to Steve Reich and Lata Mangeshkar, not to mention Astral Weeks, Sam Amidon's All Is Well, and the latest Big Thief.

Listen to the new single here:

Photo Credit: Frederique Berube