Mitski - Laurel Hell

 

Gatefold LP

Vinyl mastered by Ryan K. Smith

Singer-songwriter Mitski presents Laurel Hell, one of 2022's most-anticipated albums, via Dead Oceans, to be followed by a sold-out North American tour. The new single/video, "Love Me More," is a disco-tinged and urgent number reflecting how Laurel Hell evolved "to be more up-tempo and dance-y."

Recorded with longtime producer Patrick Hyland throughout the isolation of the pandemic, some of the songs comprising Laurel Hell "slowly took on new forms and meanings, like seed to flower" as Mitski "needed to create something that was also a pep talk." This tension that emerges between her refined but plaintive lyrics and the effervescent 1980s sound is a desperately needed infusion.

"‘Love Me More' went through the most iterations out of all the songs on the album. It's been too fast, too slow, and at some point, it was even an old style country song. Finally, I think because we had watched The Exorcist, we thought of Mike Oldfield's ‘Tubular Bells' and experimented with floating an ostinato over the chorus. As we steadily evolved the ostinato to fit over the chord progressions, we began to hear how the track was meant to sound." — Mitski

Laurel Hell is shaping up to be an album that delivers nuanced profundity on a current of contagious dance beats. It's a soundtrack for transformation, a map to the place where vulnerability and resilience, sorrow and delight, error and transcendence can all sit within our humanity, and be seen as worthy of acknowledgment, and ultimately, love. "I accept it all," Mitski promises. "I forgive it all."

 

1. Valentine, Texas

2. Working for the Knife

3. Stay Soft

4. Everyone

5. Heat Lightning

6. The Only Heartbreaker

7. Love Me More

8. There's Nothing Left Here for You

9. Should've Been Me

10. I Guess

11. That's Our Lamp

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