Stu Larsen To Release MARIGOLD on April 4

Currently, Stu Larsen has no fixed residence...all he owns is a suitcase. You can find him in his native Australia, in Spain, Japan or South America before he picks up and leaves for his new destination. The Queensland, Australia-born singer, songwriter, and narrator packed up his life in a suitcase and circled the globe on a near twelve-year and five-continent international trip, as chronicled in photography, music and his latest full-length Marigold (out April 3 via Nettwerk Records).

"I never thought I would leave the farm," Larsen laughs. Adding, "I was a shy boy, I dared not speak to anyone. I thought 'I'm never going to leave this place...I'm going to work on the farm and that's going to be it.' I was able to taste a little of what it was like to travel once and I fell in love with the outside world. When I met Mike Rosenberg [aka Passenger] he needed someone to go on the road with him and I said 'yes.'"

Over the course of just 15 days at Golden Retriever Studios in Sydney with producer Tim Hart [Boy & Bear] and engineer Simon Berckelman [Philadelphia Grand Jury], Stu tracked and mixed to tape for the first time. "To be honest, it's the first time I've been physically and mentally present in the recording process," he smiles. "In the middle of the first album [Vagabond], my father passed away, so my mind was somewhere else. On the second one, my appendix burst, and I was two weeks late to the sessions. It was amazing to be there for 'Marigold.' We were making decisions on the fly and sticking with them. We weren't going to go back and redo things. We agreed, recorded, and locked it in; which made it quick."

The eleven tracks on Marigold speak to Larsen's external and internal progression, bookended by first single "Whisky & Blankets (A Tu Lado)" and the final cut on the album, "Phone Call From My Lover." In between Marigold and his earlier LP Resolute, Larsen fell in love only to fall into heartbreak and, ultimately, find the inspiration to write straight from the heart.

"I feel like these songs are more personal than any of my previous work," he affirms. "They're about falling deeply in love with someone who came into my life and then disappeared soon after. It's very personal. I'm attached to the message and the feelings. The travel didn't necessarily affect the lyrics of the songs, but it did influence the relationship and produce the songs themselves-because I was writing on the road everywhere from Eastern Europe to South America. My takeaway from the entire situation is, 'love really is a mystery.'"

Partnering with Atwood Magazine, "Phone Call From My Lover" underscores the pain of the break-up and is "the most intimate moment on my most intimate work," adds Larsen. When this final song had been written, Larsen shaved his beard and filmed his clean-shaven face. Over the course of three months, Larsen documented the process of growing his beard back, filming intermittently as he recorded in Sydney, Australia and then travelled through Indonesia, Europe and North America. "I shaved my beard off after the final phone call from my lover in a sort of page-turning, new-chapter way. It was pretty confronting to see my clean face again after so many years and I decided to film the process of growing my beard back and to also capture the sadness and raw emotion that was so present during those months."

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