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Nov 04, 2020 James Yorkston By Christopher Roberts Photography by Nadja Hallstrom

James Yorkston has announced new album with James Yorkston and The Second Hand Orchestra, The Wide, Wide River, and shared a video for its first single, “Struggle.” The Wide, Wide River is due out January 22, 2021 via Domino. Check out the “Struggle” video below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art.

Swedish producer Karl-Jonas Winqvist is the leader and conductor of The Second Hand Orchestra. The band also features Peter Morén (Peter, Bjorn & John), Cecilia Österholm (described in a press release as “one of Sweden’s best-known nyckelharpa players”), Emma Nordenstam (piano & cello), and Ulrika Gyllenberg (violin).

Yorkston had this to say about recording “Struggle” in a press release: “The band were sat by in the studio by themselves, looping the verses over and over. I was in the control room, drinking sweet tea. I just had to wait for the right moment and jump on board, like when I’m pushing my kids round on a roundabout in the local park. I love that everyone was singing along so freely when we recorded this. There were vocal mics for everyone, and people would just lean in with a harmony, every now and then. It gives it a very communal feeling.”

Yorkston’s last solo album was 2019’s The Route to the Harmonium. At the start of 2020 he released Navarasa : Nine Emotions, a new album with Yorkston/Thorne/Khan, a trio consisting of Yorkston (guitar/nyckelharpa/vocals), Jon Thorne (double-bass/vocals), and Suhail Yusuf Khan (sarangi/vocals)

Read our My Firsts interview with James Yorkston.

The Wide, Wide River Tracklist:

1. Ella Mary Leather
2. To Soothe Her Wee Bit Sorrows
3. Choices, Like Wild Rivers
4. Struggle
5. There Is No Upside
6. A Droplet Forms
7. A Very Old-Fashioned Blues
8. We Test The Beams

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