February 4, 2021 – New York, NY, Brighton, UK: Juanita Stein has released a video for her new single, “Lucky,” taken from her brilliant new album, Snapshot (out now via Nude Records/Handwritten Records USA). The video provides the perfect moody backdrop to the song which, with the rest of the album, was written and recorded in the months following Stein’s father’s passing in 2019.
Explains Stein, ““I feel the fire, I feel the change.” “Lucky” is the first song I wrote for this album, it came tumbling out of me the week my father was admitted to hospital. It signaled the profound shifts in reality and the revelation that only love and encouragement would see us all through the challenges ahead. The video sees me contemplating my reality, whilst driving aimlessly around the open and spacious South Downs in Sussex, not far from where I live. Driving alone has always been a cathartic experience for me, moving freely through the world, nothing but my thoughts and the breeze flowing through my hands.”
Watch “Lucky” on YouTube:
Unlike her first two solo albums, America (2017) and Until The Lights Fade (2018), which were made in just a few weeks in the United States, Snapshot was recorded over the course of eight months at Agricultural Audio, not far from Juanita’s home. She talks about the process: “This allowed me the time and distance I so craved. Ben was deeply concerned with allowing the songs to breathe and to take the right shape. We laid down all the defining guitar parts and vocals which were then beds for the band to come in and lay their parts on.”
As the record began to take shape, Juanita “called on my brother, Joel Stein, (guitarist in Howling Bells) to play lead guitar, I knew only he could harness the exact frenzied energy needed for the songs. Both he and I were going through something pretty momentous and I wanted to shift that energy into the music. Evan Jenkins on drums alternated between freeform and thunderous on some tracks, light and barely-there on others. Jimi Wheelwright on bass held it all together beautifully.”
The result is a record that feels crafted from a life lived as much as it was clearly excavated from loss. It’s a record that strives to capture more than a passing moment and succeeds in laying its hands on something bigger than most of us will ever fully understand.
Stein recently recorded a session for WNYC’s prestigious program Soundcheck and also announces fresh tour dates for 2021, running from May and concluding with a hometown show in Brighton on June 2. This tour will be Juanita’s first chance to fully play the new album live, although fans were treated to a preview when she and her band played a special show streamed from Brighton’s Electric last month, raising funds for the #WEMAKEEVENTS campaign in the process.
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