Joint Album of the Week: Sharon Van Etten and The Twilight Sad <i>Remind Me Tomorrow</i>

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Joint Album of the Week: Sharon Van Etten and The Twilight Sad

Remind Me Tomorrow Out Now via Jagjaguwar and It Won/t Be Like This All the Time Out Now via Rock Action

Jan 18, 2019 By Christopher Roberts Steve Mason

We haven’t done an Album of the Week since mid November, but this week there was a multitude of strong contenders and so we’re back with a joint Album of the Week: Sharon Van Etten‘s Remind Me Tomorrow and The Twilight Sad‘s It Won/t Be Like This All the Time both get the honor. Below is info on both albums, as well as on some strong runner-ups.

Sharon Van Etten: Remind Me Tomorrow (Jagjaguwar)

Sharon Van Etten released a new album, Remind Me Tomorrow, today via Jagjaguwar.

You can read our rave 8.5/10 review of it here.

Remind Me Tomorrow is the follow-up to 2014’s Are We There, but she’s kept busy in the intervening years, having a kid, going back to school, writing a film score, and embarking on an acting career. The album was written while Van Etten was pregnant and going to school to study psychology. Around that time she also guest starred on the Netflix show The OA and was one of the musical performers on the revival of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Plus she wrote the score for Strange Weather, a 2017 drama directed by Katherine Dieckmann and starring Holly Hunter and Carrie Coon, as well as contributing the closing title song for Tig, a 2015 documentary on comedian Tig Notaro. As a previous press release described it, “Remind Me Tomorrow was written in stolen time: in scraps of hours wedged between myriad endeavors.”

John Congleton produced Remind Me Tomorrow, taking Van Etten’s original demos and helping to transform them into a new sound for the singer/songwriter. “He helped flip the signature Van Etten ratio, making the album more energetic-upbeat than minimal-meditative,” the previous press release explained. “The songs are as resonating as ever, the themes are still an honest and subtle approach to love and longing, but Congleton has plucked out new idiosyncrasies from Van Etten’s sound.”

The album finds Van Etten stepping away from the guitar, writing on piano. “Comeback Kid” was initially a piano ballad, but Van Etten “didn’t want it to be pretty,” so it evolved. The previous press release further described the album’s sound as such: “Remind Me Tomorrow as a whole shows this magnetism towards new instruments: piano keys that churn, deep drones, distinctive sharp drums. There are dark intense synths, a propulsive organ, a distorted harmonium.”

The album features Van Etten’s longtime collaborator and bandmate Heather Woods Broderick, as well as various guests, including: Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu, Zachary Dawes, Brian Reitzell, Lars Horntveth, McKenzie Smith, Joey Waronker, Luke Reynolds, and Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint.

Van Etten had this to say about the album in the previous press release: “I want to be a mom, a singer, an actress, go to school, but yeah, I have a stain on my shirt, oatmeal in my hair and I feel like a mess, but I’m here. Doing it. This record is about pursuing your passions.”

Previously Van Etten shared the album’s first single, “Comeback Kid” (which was one of our Songs of the Week), as well as a video for the song. Then she shared another song from the album, “Jupiter 4,” via a video for the song. The compelling tension filled track was all build-up with no release and its dark and mysterious black & white video matched the song’s vibe well. “Jupiter 4” was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then she shared “Seventeen,” via a video for the track that features the singer in New York City, but in the spirit of the song, also flashes back to a 17-year-old version of Van Etten. “Seventeen” was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then she stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform two songs from the album: “Seventeen” on the broadcast show and “You Shadow” as a web-exclusive.

Sharon Van Etten Tour Dates:

Wed. Feb. 6 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club #
Thu. Feb. 7 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer #
Fri. Feb. 8 - Boston, MA @ Royale #
Sat. Feb. 9 - New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre $ #
Mon. Feb. 11 - Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall #
Wed. Feb. 13 - Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre #
Thu. Feb. 14 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall #— SOLD OUT
Fri. Feb. 15 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall #
Sat. Feb. 16 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue #
Mon. Feb. 18 - Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre #
Tue. Feb 19 - Salt Lake City, UT - Metro Music Hall #
Thu. Feb 21 - Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom #
Fri. Feb 22 - Vancouver, BC - Imperial #
Sat. Feb 23 - Seattle, WA - Neptune Theatre #
Tue. Feb. 26 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore #
Thu. Feb 28 - San Diego, CA - The Observatory North Park #
Fri. March 1 - Los Angeles, CA - The Theatre at Ace Hotel #
Thu. March 21 - Birmingham, UK @ The Mill
Fri. March 22 - Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall
Sat. March 23 - Dublin, IE @ Vicar Street
Sun. March 24 - Glasgow, UK @ St. Luke’s - SOLD OUT
Tue. March 26 - London, UK @ Roundhouse
Wed. March 27 - Bristol, UK @ SWX
Fri. March 29 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Sat. March 30 - Brussels, BE @ Orangerie (at Botanique)
Mon. April 1 - Paris, FR @ La Maroquinerie
Tue. April 2 - Koln, DE @ Luxor
Wed. April 3 - Munich, DE @ Strom
Fri. April 5 - Berlin, DE @ Lido
Sat. April 6 - Hamburg, DE @ Grünspan
Sun. April 7 - Copenhagen, DK @ Studio 2 (DR Concert House)
Tue. April 9 - Gothenburg, SE @ Pustervik
Wed. April 10 - Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret
Thu. April 11 - Stockholm, SE @ Kagelbanen

# = with Nilüfer Yanya
$ = with Fred Armisen

www.sharonvanetten.com

The Twilight Sad: It Won/t Be Like This All the Time (Rock Action)

Scotland’s The Twilight Sad released a new album, It Won/t Be Like This All the Time, today via Mogwai’s label, Rock Action.

Read our rave 9/10 review of it here.

Read our 10,000 word in-depth Q&A interview with The Twilight Sad that we posted today here.

Work on It Won/t Be Like This All the Time began during the band’s recent tours with The Cure. Guitarist Andy MacFarlane worked on demos in his London home. Six months later the band got together in November 2017 in a remote rehearsal space on Loch Fyne and then recorded the album in January of this year at Devon’s Middle Farm Studios with live engineer Andy Bush. This the first album that sees long-time touring members Brendan Smith (The Blue Nile, The Unwinding Hours) and Johnny Docherty (Take a Worm For a Walk Week, RUNGS) officially join the band.

In a previous press release frontman James Graham had this to say about recording the album: “I’ve always seen Brendan and Johnny as part of the band and it’s time to say that aloud. From the actual coming together of the demos to recording the final versions of these songs has probably been one of my favorite experiences of being in the band. All four of us were throwing ideas in, whereas before Andy had mapped it all out. Once he got past the point of making the demos his point of view was ‘we need to make these even better. These need to take a step up from where they are.’ He opened the floor to everybody.

“The results speak for themselves: an exhilarating listen, by turns cinematic and claustrophobic in its scope, the band dug deep to produce It Won/t Be Like This All the Time, and it’s perhaps their most raw and dynamic record to date.

“It’s a dark record but I think there are some uplifting moments to be had too. There are so many extremes here - there are moments that are harsh, then others that are quite melodic and others that are stripped right down. This album definitely comes with the extremes of every side of the band, I think. There’s a certain direct openness and candor now but at the same time I want to keep some mystery. We don’t like to throw things in people’s faces and spell it out for them.”

Previously the band shared three songs from the album, starting with “I/m Not Here [missing face],” a new song they shared back in July 2018 (it was one of our Songs of the Week), and album closer “Videograms,” which they shared in September 2018 when the album was announced (it was also one of our Songs of the Week). Then they shared “VTr” (it was also one of our Songs of the Week), as well as a video for “VTr.”

The Twilight Sad U.S. Tour Dates:

May:

10 - Philadelphia, PA - The Foundry
11 - Brooklyn, NY - Elsewhere
12 - Washington, DC - U Street Music Hall
14 - Boston, MA - Sonia
16 - Toronto, ON - Velvet Underground
17 - Detroit, MI - El Club
18 - Chicago, IL - Sleeping Village
21 - Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
22 - Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge
24 - Vancouver, BC - Wise Hall
26 - Seattle, WA - Crocodile
27 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir
29 - San Francisco, CA - Independent
30 - Los Angeles, CA - Teragram Ballroom

www.thetwilightsad.com

Album of the Week Runner-ups (Also Released This Week):

James Blake: Assume Form (Republic)