The London-based trio have also released a new single in form of rock n roll ballad ‘In My Arms’, accompanied by a fantastic performance video celebrating queer love and friendship. Watch the heartwarming video below, as filmed in Southend and directed by Lydia Garrett for Girls In Films Productions. “At this point I was getting tired of living in London and dreaming about another life” says singer and guitarist Stephanie Phillips about writing ‘In My Arms’. “It’s about knowing you should go another way in life but you end up dreaming about the road you’ve already travelled down even though you know it won’t take you where you need to go.”

Recorded at Hermitage Works Studios in North London, Back Home was produced and mixed by Margo Broom (Goat Girl, Fat White Family) and features violin courtesy of Charlotte Valentine of the experimental art rock project No Home, who recently collaborated with the LA-based artist SASAMI. Back Home is a dramatic leap forward for the band; the band build on their tightly knit, lo-fi punk formula to bring forth a collage of blazing guitars, down tempo dance punk, and melancholic strings that evoke the full depth of the band’s expansive art punk vision.

The album title references a search for a place to call home, whether real or metaphysical. “We were really ruminating on the idea of a home and what it means,” explains Stephanie. “It’s about the different ideas of home, whether that’s here in the UK, back in Africa or the Caribbean, or a place that doesn’t really exist; it’s neither here nor there.”

The band worked with multidisciplinary artist Angelica Ellis to design the striking embroidered cover art, which is a depiction of Chardine’s nephew at the barbers. The artwork is a reference to the embroidered wall hangings popular in Caribbean homes post-Windrush that were a callback to the homes they left behind.

Back Home:

1. Cactus Tree
2. Taut
3. Confident Man
4. What Are You Waiting For
5. In My Arms
6. Your Words
7. Count To 10
8. Happier Still
9. Insecure
10. Today
11. I Will
12. In My Arms (Reprise)
13. Sainted

The post Big Joanie announce second album Back Home. Watch the video for new single ‘In My Arms’ appeared first on She Makes Music.

The new single follows on from the release of Big Joanie’s previous single ‘Cranes in the Sky’, a cover of Solange Knowles released on Jack White’s Third Man Records in 2020. Singer and guitarist Stephanie Phillips had this to say about ‘Happier Still’: “I started writing ‘Happier Still’ after our first album came out in late 2018 and finished writing it while we were in Austin for SXSW 2019. This song is about wanting to break out of a depression and pushing yourself to feel better. I like the idea of chanting “I’ll feel fine” and then hoping that will eventually turn things around.”

Additionally, Big Joanie feature on a Sleater-Kinney covers album celebrating the twenty fifth anniversary of their 1997 album Dig Me Out, appearing alongside St. Vincent, Wilco, Courtney Barnett, Low, the Linda Lindas and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe. Part of the proceeds will be donated to will be donated to SMYRC, a Portland-based LGBTQIA+ youth centre.

The post Big Joanie release new single ‘Happier Still’ appeared first on She Makes Music.