New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Portland, Oregon-based artist Kassi Valazza recently announced her sophomore full-length, Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing, which is set to release on May 26 via Fluff & Gravy Records (Margo Cilker, Anna Tivel) in North America and Loose Music (Andrew Combs, Courtney Marie Andrews) in the UK. Pre-orders are available now at Fluff & Gravy, Bandcamp, and Loose Music (UK only).
The second single from the forthcoming 10-song set, "Corners," is premiering today at Brooklyn Vegan. Throughout the track, fingerpicked acoustic guitar dances with bounding bass and twinkling piano, as a gentle backing choir flows behind Valazza like a stream through a lonesome vista.
"The clouds move slower than they ever seemed to / Still, they find a way to pass me by," she sings on her breezy lament about the longing that comes with an unhealthy love, "My friends, though, they wonder what I'm used to / To love a man who never treats me right."
Of recording "Corners," Valazza offers, "On this album, everything was recorded live, all the vocals and instrumentation. We recorded in a room together with [Portland-based band] TK & The Holy Know-Nothings, who hadn't heard any of the songs before we went into the studio. You're rarely going to find a songwriter that writes and composes every single song; it's a combination of people working things out together, of what I want and what the band hears. When people don't know the songs, it's a lot looser and more magic can happen. You don't overthink it.
One thing I really loved about recording 'Corners' in particular was watching the guys do the four-part harmonies. It finally felt like the song was coming together. I also made a point to have no electric guitar to add to those breezy Eagles sounds, making it the only track on the album without electric guitar."
News of the new record arrived last month alongside lead single "Watching Planes Go By," which serves as the opening track on UNCUT's Sounds of the New West Vol 6 disc. Within a curious and cosmic atmosphere of psychedelic folk-rock that UNCUT calls a "slow-burning mix of Americana and Paisley Underground psych," Valazza reflects on the dangers of standing still in life, "Autumn leaves turn to yellow / and green turns to jealousy / Watching days go by."
Valazza's songs manage to capture the romanticism of country crooners with the intuition of a realist poet. Her gutsy and graceful poetry is backed by swirling Western psychedelia as she explores themes of love and longing through metaphors from the natural world. Though the music plays country cousin to British folk, calling to mind greats like Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention) and Karen Dalton, a Southwestern American streak carves its way through these solemn, sweetly sung melodies like a canyon.
Valazza has inspired a cult-like fascination since the self-release of her 2019 debut album Dear Dead Days, which she followed with a surprise digital EP called Highway Sounds last year. She is seated squarely at the vanguard of new American songwriters strengthening and broadening the sound of country and western, both bearing the torch and bending the arc of roots music.
'Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing' will release on May 26, 2023 via Fluff & Gravy Records. Listen to the new single here:
