Stream Dawn Landes’ New Album Bluebird

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Dawn Landes will release Bluebird, the followup to 2012’s Mal Habillée, next week. The new album features guest harmonies and piano from Norah Jones, but don’t expect to hear any gentle jazz ballads.

“People will say this is a break-up record and I won’t deny it,” says the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter, who just wrapped up a tour with Steve Earle.” I went through a painful divorce. I suffered and I cried and after the crying stopped the songs started to come.”

“‘Bluebird’ was the first song I wrote for the record,” says Landes, who covers Bob Dylan’s “Dark Eyes” with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy on the upcoming Bob Dylan In The’ 80s tribute album. “It came to me in a dream as I was staying at a monastery in upstate New York. It was my first glimmer of hope after a bleak year. In the following months the songs seemed to come to me easily, simply, and that’s how we ended up recording them in the studio. My friend and producer Thomas Bartlett invited some of my favorite musicians to the sessions, Tony Scherr and Catherine Popper on bass, Rob Moose on guitars and strings and Norah Jones on piano and harmonies. In two days we tracked the entire album, mostly live. In hindsight it sounds so effortless, and it was, but the sessions were charged with emotion. There was something electric in the air. It’s all there in the recordings, if you listen close.”

Bluebird is due 2/18 via Western Vinyl. Pre-order it on iTunes here.