Allison Russell Announces New Album The Returner
Allison Russell is returning to the music scene with a brand new album. The “Nightflyer” singer announced that her second studio album, The Returner, will release on September 8.
Allison Russell’s The Returner will consist of ten tracks. She only recently debuted the title track. The singer stated, “I thought about returning, and what that means to me… And I thought about survivors’ joy and how we don’t talk about that enough.”
Russell elaborated on her return to music, particularly who inspired her album title. She revealed that the incomparable Joni Mitchell helped her name the record. Russell joins frequent collaborators Brandi Carlile and Mitchell at The Gorge in Washington State this weekend.
The singer revealed that the first instant the word “returner” came to her had been during the surprise Joni Jam at the Newport Folk Festival last summer. She expressed, “I wrote a poem about Joni, and in the poem, I called her ‘Our Lady Returner.’ I thought about how much grit and grace that she has as a human being to be able to come back from death, not once, but three times, and to relearn not just how to sing and play but how to walk and talk.”
She continued, “Obviously, there was just the joy of hearing and seeing her play again for me, the first time ever in my life, live, when nobody thought she would be able to be up there for an hour and a half, singing songs and playing guitar like that, ever again. But also, I was listening to her my whole existence; my mom, as a so-called unwed teenage mom in Montreal in 1979, was listening to Joni Mitchell’s ‘Ladies of the Canyon’ and ‘Clouds’ nonstop.”
Unlike Russell’s Grammy-nominated debut, Outside Child, The Returner will not contain as heavy subject matter as her previous effort. She states, “You can take deep dives on these songs if you want to, but you don’t have to. You can just feel them, too. You know, these songs move. This is about being back in your own body and celebrating that. It’s like a celebratory soundtrack for getting tired of hating yourself and deciding you’re worthy. … I hope people feel some of the joy in this record.”
We are excited about Allison Russell’s return to the music scene. Fans can stream Outside Child on all major music platforms.
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