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Jun 21, 2022 By Mark Redfern Photography by Emma Daisy

Australian singer/songwriter Stella Donnelly is releasing a new album, Flood, on August 26 via Secretly Canadian. Now she has shared its second single, title track “Flood,” via a video for the song. Donnelly co-directed the video with Nick Mckk and Grace Goodwin. In it Donnelly and her bandmates rescue an exercise machine from the trash. Watch it below, followed by her upcoming tour dates.

Donnelly had this to say about “Flood” in a press release: “This song feels like a sad little adventure. I wrote it in the dark depths of a Melbourne winter lockdown where it had been raining for consecutive weeks. Everyone around me was falling into their own version of depression at different times. It felt like a flood of trauma yet at the same time, we were given an opportunity of time to work through stuff that we’d been distracting ourselves with for so long prior to the pandemic.”

Of the video, she says: “This clip is pure ridiculous play, like going to your grandparents house where you and your cousins would get up to the most elaborate film projects. We always ran around the house making home movies that tried to re-enact other films and much like this clip here, they always ended in some sort of minor catastrophe. With this video for ‘Flood’ we have made a very feeble attempt at recreating the legendary OK GO video clip for ‘Here it Goes Again’ and we failed gloriously.”

Previously Donnelly shared Flood’s first single, “Lungs,” via a video. “Lungs” was one of our Songs of the Week.

“I do love observing human dynamics,” Donnelly said in a previous press release, in relation to “Lungs,” the album’s opening track. “Dynamics between old best friends, or dynamics between housemates, or a relationship where the two people are broken up and haven’t spoken in years. I like getting into the mind of someone who we’ve all been at some point.”

Flood is Donnelly’s second album, the follow-up to 2019’s debut full-length album, Beware of the Dogs. Donnelly co-wrote songs with her bandmates Jennifer Aslett, George Foster, Jack Gaby, and Marcel Tussie, and the previous press release says the process “at times felt like experimental kindergarten play.” Donnelly co-produced Flood alongside Anna Laverty and Methyl Ethyl’s Jake Webb.

The album was partially written during her time in the rainforests of Australia’s Bellingen, where she took up birdwatching. During her time writing new songs she also lived in Fremantle, Williams, Guilderton, Margaret River, and Melbourne and in total she wrote 43 new songs.

“I had so many opportunities to write things in strange places,” Donnelly said. “I often had no choice about where I was. There’s no denying that not being able to access your family with border closures, it zooms in on those parts of your life you care about.”

Read our interview with Stella Donnelly on Beware of the Dogs.

Also read our rave 8.5/10 review of Beware of the Dogs.

Stella Donnelly Tour Dates:

Mon. Jun. 27 - Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vrendenburg *
Tue. Jun. 28 - Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vrendenburg *
Thu. Jun. 30 - Berlin, DE @ Verti Music Hall *
Sun. Jul. 3 - Six-Fours-les-Plages, FR @ Pointu Festival
Thur. Jul. 7 - Biscay, ES @ BBK Bilbao Festival
Sat. Jul. 23 - Byron Bay, AU @ Splendour In The Grass
Sun. Sept. 11 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Mon. Sept. 12 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda
Tue. Sept. 13 - San Francisco, CA @ Independent
Thu. Sept. 15 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Fri. Sept. 16 - Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
Sat. Sept. 17 - Seattle, WA @ Neumos
Wed. Sept. 21 - Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe
Thu. Sept. 22 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
Fri. Sept. 23 - Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
Sat. Sept. 24 - Toronto, ON @ Longboat Hall
Mon. Sept. 26 - Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom
Wed. Sept. 28 - Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
Fri. Sept. 30 - Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
Sat. Oct. 1 - Washington, DC @ Songbyrd
Tue. Nov. 1 - Leeds, UK @ Wardrobe
Wed. Nov. 2 - Glasgow @ Mono
Thu. Nov. 3 - Manchester @ Band On The Wall
Fri. Nov. 4 - Dublin, IE @ Whelan’s
Sun. Nov. 6 - Liverpool, UK @ Zanzibar
Tue. Nov. 8 Nottingham, UK @ Metronome
Wed. Nov. 9 - Bristol, UK @ Thekla
Thu. Nov. 10 - London, UK @ Electric Brixton
Sat. Nov. 12 - Cardiff, UK @ The Gate
Sun. Nov. 13 - Birmingham, UK @ Hare and Hounds
Mon. Nov. 14 - Brighton, UK @ Komedia
Wed. Nov. 16 - Paris, FR @ FMR
Thu. Nov. 17 - Cologne, DE @ Artheatre
Fri. Nov. 18 - Brussels, BE @ Rotonde - Botanique
Sat. Nov. 19 - Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet
Mon. Nov. 21 - Hamburg, DE @ Molotow Skybar
Tue. Nov. 22 - Copenhagen, DK @ Hotel Cecil
Thu. Nov. 24 - Berlin, DE @ Badehaus
Fri. Nov. 25 - Munich, DE @ Strom !

* w/ Mitski
! w/ Julia Jacklin

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