Juanita Stein has released her new video for the track titled ‘Mother Nature Scorn’ from her upcoming album ‘The Weightless Hour’ dropping November 29th. I thought that the lack of drums, or any percussion, would hinder the track. It actually adds to it. It adds a subtle nuance that endears the song and gives it a memorable quality meant for memories. That ‘storyteller’ aspect that the lack of drums, plus the marriage of a brilliant and layered chord progression adds just underneath Juanita’s angelic and expanding vocals.

As the song just serenely and magically glides along the smooth path it creates for itself, you feel an immersion that rests around you as a caress, almost. The feeling of calm and reassurance as you take the song in, even before you comprehend the lyrics. A beautiful stage is set.

About Juanita Stein

’The Weightless Hour’ sees Stein join forces once more with long-time collaborator, the producer Ben Hillier (see also: Depeche Mode, Doves, Blur, Elbow). After originally teaming up for 2020’s Snapshot, Stein’s third record, which was built from collected fragments of grief following the loss of her father, it was Hillier’s penchant for minimalism – his instinct for risk-taking while stripping sounds back to their gleaming bones – that aligned with her vision for her fourth project.

In removing most instrumental additions beyond the guitar (and you will notice there are no drums on the LP), with ‘The Weightless Hour’, Stein made a subconscious choice to make the project entirely her own. In the space freed by the stripped-back instrumentation, her storytelling bleeds freely like watercolors across a blank page. The album is an intensely human document with a profound sense of dignity. A record on which Stein has found that exploring a more restrained side can yield work that is armed with experience and yet is all the lighter for it, where your attention isn’t demanded and yet is effortlessly claimed. Every sound, every choice, has earned its place.

“I think making records is a really powerful way of letting go of experiences,” Stein notes. “I’m allowing myself to kiss things goodbye.” Through these converging chapters of her life, ‘The Weightless Hour’ feels like an arrival for Juanita Stein: “I’ve finally learned to be okay in space and be loud in my experiences.”

Featured image by Giovanna Ferin.

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