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Jul 23, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Amber Arcades

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Amber Arcades, the project of Dutch musician Annelotte de Graaf, his releasing her sophomore album, European Heartbreak, on September 28 via Heavenly. Previously she shared a video for its first single (and opening track), “Simple Song” (which was one of our Songs of the Week), as well as “Goodnight Europe.” Now she has shared another song from the album, “Alpine Town.” Listen below.

De Graaf had this to say about the song in a press release: “I wrote this song exactly a year ago while on holiday in Guillestre, a small town in the French Alps. I was kind of in a sad place and my boyfriend had dragged me along to get away from all that, but I guess it doesn’t really work like that, ha. It just made me reflect on the sad part of the tourist condition as a metaphor for life, man.”

Amber Arcades released her fantastic debut album, Fading Lines, in 2016 via Heavenly. It made our Top 100 Albums of 2016 list. In June 2017 she is released the 5-song Cannonball EP, also via Heavenly.

European Heartbreak was co-produced with Chris Cohen (solo artist and former Deerhoof member) in Los Angeles and with Trey Pollard (Natalie Prass, Bedouine) in Richmond, Virginia, where Pollard oversaw horn and string overdubs from Spacebomb.

A previous press release had this to say about the album: “A vast step forward from her critically acclaimed debut album Fading Lines, this selection of songs flit around Europe, from Berlin to Spain to the south of France. It’s European not just in lyrical theme but in the sly sophistication of its music: songs that carry with them the air of open-topped cars on clifftop roads, of cocktails on the terrace at sunset. And then the lyrics undercut that sunny mood, artfully and skilfully.”

De Graaf had this to say about the album and its title in the previous press release: “If it were called American Heartbreak, you wouldn’t bat an eye. Somehow calling it European Heartbreak feels far less comfortable, almost like a statement in itself. I’m Dutch, hence European. The focus of the record is Europe. As for Heartbreak, for me a heartbreak symbolizes any kind of falling apart of one of these concepts or stories we invent for ourselves, like romantic love, a sense of identity, nationality, an economic system. It’s kind of a universal thing in my mind.”

De Graaf commented on “Simple Song” and its video in the press release: “This music video forms part 2 of a trilogy which tells a modern European (love) story, touching on various thoughts and feelings that inspired my new record. Using the medium of film to tell this story ties it to one of the central ideas of the record, which is the essential nature of storytelling in understanding our lives. For me, part 1 focused very much on a feeling of isolation, being trapped in an external surrounding which feels anxious and numb at the same time. Part 2, the music video for ‘Simple Song,’ translates these feelings into the dynamics of a romantic relationship.”

Read our 2016 interview with Amber Arcades and our 2016 Artist Survey interview with her.

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