New York, NY (Top40 Charts) 'Are You Gone,' the first album from singer-songwriter
Sarah Harmer in a decade, is out today, February 21st, on Arts & Crafts Records. Anchored by Sarah's "beautiful, precise voice and knack for finding melodies that are big but not obvious" (The New York Times) and the convictions that led her to spend the last ten years as a community organizer fighting for environmental causes, the album brings a dark, life-lived wisdom and edge to the sound and themes first introduced on her acclaimed 2000 debut, 'You Were Here.' An examination of the ghosts in Sarah's life - friends who have passed, relationships that have washed away,
Sarah as a singer in the public eye, nature - the album is an introspective statement on the idea of presence, and a call to action for the sake of the earth.
Written in between Sarah's co-founding of the environmental action group PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land) - fighting and winning against the provincial government in order to preserve protected Niagara lands - and her realization of the power of her art to be activism, 'Are You Gone,' "can be a melancholy album at times, but by turning the natural environment into a musical panorama ... [Harmer] finds the strength to rise above." (BandCamp).
Listen to "New Low", inspired by Sarah's frustration at Queen's University's (her alma mater) resistance to fossil fuel divestment, and the university president's feeble excuses as to ethical "gray areas" when she met and confronted him on the topic.
Sonically alternating between warm folk chords and wintry piano, and lyrically alternating between haunted poeticism ("Just Get Here," a musical time capsule inspired by Sarah's stay at the cottage of famed Canadian poet Al Purdy), grief ("St. Peter's Bay," "What I Was to You" about the loss of Sarah's good friend Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip), and glimpses of whimsy ("Little Frogs," a lyrical inventory of all the wonderful things
Sarah doesn't want to forget), 'Are You Gone' is a fully dimensional portrait of Sarah's inner life and outer ambitions.
This spring, she will introduce 'Are You Gone' to US fans for the first time in ten years, kicking off her tour on February 26th in DC with a full band. For a taste of her live style, check her out at NPR's World Cafe HERE, and see a full list of dates below.
A key player in the early 2000s folk-rock scene, Sarah's first album 'You Were Here' was named the best debut of the year by TIME Magazine. She has performed on The Late Show with
David Letterman, Ellen, garnered nine JUNO nominations and two wins, and been widely praised for her "razor-sharp songwriting chops" (NPR Music) and "plainly hooky" melodic sensibility (Rolling Stone). In 2010, she semi-retired from music to fight for endangered lands in species in the Niagara region, and 2020's 'Are You Gone,' marks her first official return to music since then.
US TOUR DATES:
Feb 26 - Alexandria, VA @ Birchmere
Feb 27 - Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live
Feb 29 - New York, NY @ Joe's Pub
Mar 1 - Boston, MA @ City Winery
May 4 - Seattle, WA @ Triple Door
May 5 - Portland, OR @ The Old Church
May 7 - San Francisco, CA @ Swedish American Hall
May 8 -
Santa Monica @ McCabe's Guitar Shop
May 12 - Denver, CO @ Soiled Dove Underground
May 15 - Chicago, IL @ Old Town School of Folk Music
May 16 - Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
