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Nov 29, 2019 By Christopher Roberts Rose Elinor Dougall

Rose Elinor Dougall released a new album, A New Illusion, back in April via Vermillion (it was our Album of the Week). Now she has shared a new song, “How Long,” a non-album track Dougall says is the last song to be shared from the A New Illusion sessions. Listen below. Also, last month she shared another new song, “Natural State,” that we somehow neglected to post, and that’s below too.

Read our interview with Dougall on A New Illusion.

Also pick up Under the Radar’s current print issue (the My Favorite Album Issue) to read our interview with Dougall on her all-time favorite album.

Plus read our review of A New Illusion.

A New Illusion is Dougall’s third album and the follow-up to 2017’s acclaimed Stelluar (which was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2017). Previously Dougall shared its first single, “First Sign” (which was one of our Songs of the Week). Then she shared another song from it, “Take What You Can Get,” an immaculately produced propulsive string-backed track that was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then when the album was released, we made album track “Christina in Red” #1 on our Songs of the Week list.

Back in November 2018 she also shared the new song, “Make It With You,” which was our #1 Song of the Week and is surprisingly not featured on the new album.

The album features her brother Tom Dougall of the band TOY, along with his bandmates Maxim Barron and Max Claps, as well as Euan Hinshelwood and Joe Chilton of Younghusband. Dougall had this to say about her collaborators in a previous press statement: “It does feel like a really nice group effort - I didn’t want to be over-prescriptive, so some of it is quite loose. I wanted to make it about musicianship.”

Dougall had this to say about the album: “I just wanted to sit at the piano and play, I wanted to return to something essential. There’s something comforting and solid about that instinctive relationship with music, with playing and singing.”

“First Sign” was inspired during a trip to a remote part of Andalusia, in Southern Spain. Dougall explained: “I was trying to cut loose from a situation, and this song is about vainly attempting to shake oneself free. I was looking for a loose, hazy feeling to the music to sit with the imagery of the song. I wanted it to sound like the end of summer.”

Dougall is also a former member of The Pipettes and Mark Ronson‘s band, as well as Innerspace Orchestra, a trio with Tom Furse of The Horrors and Cathy Lucas of Fanfarlo.

Read our 2017 interview with Rose Elinor Dougall on Stelluar.

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