New Orleans’ Erin Durant is a songwriter with a clear vision. Composing the majority of her work in concert with her piano, Durant’s songs “unfold structurally like a memory or a scene from a movie.” The tracks also possess the organic, intuitive flow of traditional folk, lending a real human core. So key is Durant’s relationship to the piano that she travels with a portable 3/4 size acoustic model to any venue that cannot provide one, a clue as to the completeness of her ideals and determination to achieve them.
Following her debut album Blueberry Mountain, released in 2016 on Flying Moonlight, Durant has enlisted the help of producer Kyp Malone (TV On The Radio) to create the richly ambitious Islands. Coming this June on Keeled Scales, the record is a collision of the vast and the intimate, weaving focused, personal vignettes into something that explores far grander themes, a complex mosaic dedicated to the nuances of trauma and loss. “The songs, each their own world, touch on the ability to find meaning in minutiae,” explains the press release, “the importance of awareness and mindfulness in finding your footing in a world that, at times, seems irreparably imbalanced.”
Imbued with a characteristic warmth, lead single ‘Take A Load Off’ finds a wanderer tired of the constant movement but afraid to stop. The track forms a meditation on the curse of the traveler, the dizzying rootless roll just some form of escape, but attempts to settle feeling equally transient, as though each experience is merely a temporary alleviation of a deeper, nameless driver that can be forgotten but never extracted.
Islands will be released by Keeled Scales in June so keep an eye on their website for more information.