New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Julia Stone has today shared another tantalising taste of her forthcoming third solo album Sixty Summers with the poignant track 'We All Have' featuring Matt Berninger from The National. Also been revealed today; Sixty Summers will now be released on Friday 16 April (via BMG) - due to a delay in vinyl production.
'We All Have' is Sixty Summers' most tender song, a sweet ballad celebrating every human's ability to heal even in the face of devastating pain. With its spare piano and finger-plucked guitars, 'We All Have' represents the duality of Sixty Summers. "This song is about how everything transforms and moves; even though you feel so shitty at one point, it might shift into something new," says Stone of the inspiration behind the song. "Love is all that we really need to be here for —not love with someone else but love in your heart."
Matt Berninger, frontman of The
National who features on the stunning track shares his elation of his involvement on 'We All Have': "It's always really inspiring to hear old friends creating such amazing music. I've been a big fan of Julia's work for a long time, and it was so fun to be invited to be a part of this song!"
'We All Have' stands as the fourth track to be released from Sixty Summers. It follows Stone's first solo single in a number of years, 'Break', drenched in dazzling moonlit pop, the ethereal and otherworldly 'Unreal' and, most recently, the dreamy, rose-coloured 'Dance'. Each of the singles have arrived with award-worthy visuals imagined by Stone and her creative collaborators
Jessie Hill for 'Break' and 'Dance' and Bonnie Moir for 'Unreal'. At the end of 2020, Stone revealed a reimagining of the three singles to date on an EP titled Twin. She also found time to release a four-track Christmas EP titled
Everything Is Christmas.
'We All Have' the single, is also accompanied by a music video directed by twice ARIA nominated director Gabriel Gasparinatos (Baker Boy, ONEFOUR). Featuring Gabriel's cousin
Jesse Gasparinatos, a second-generation Abalone diver based out of Australia's southernmost Tasmanian town, the clip was shot over a week spent on Jesse's fishing boat late last year.
Shot in one of Tasmania's most remote landscapes, the clip follows the secluded relationship between a diver and their deck-hand, exploring the lightness and darkness in grief and isolation.
Her first solo album in eight years, Sixty Summers arrives as a powerful rebirth for one of Australia's most prolific artists. Emerging from the wildernesses of folk and indie-rock, on Sixty Summers Stone dives headfirst into the cosmopolitan, hedonistic world of late-night, moonlit pop. The stunning album brings us the grit and glitter of the city, with all its attendant joys, dangers, romances and risks. It is Stone at her truest, brightest self, a revered icon finally sharing her long, secret love affair with this vibrant and complex genre.
Recorded sporadically over five years from 2015 to 2019, Sixty Summers was shaped profoundly by Stone's key collaborators on the album:
Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, and
Annie Clark, the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and producer known as St. Vincent. Bartlett and Clark were the symbiotic pair Stone needed to realise her first pop vision. A wizard of production and songwriting, Bartlett helped coax Sixty Summers' independent, elemental spirit from Stone, writing and recording over 30 demos with her at his studio in New York. Itself a thoroughfare for indie rock luminaries, some of whom, such as the aforementioned Matt Berninger from The
National and Bryce Dessner, ended up on the album, Bartlett's studio was perfect fertile ground for Stone's growth. "Making this record with Thomas, I felt so free. I can hear it in the music," says Stone. "He brings a sense of confidence to recording sessions."
The scope of Sixty Summers is dizzyingly vast; miles away from Stone's past work, it is a world unto itself, a surreal and breathtaking new landscape. Where Stone's previous solo records, 2010's The Memory Machine and 2014's By The Horns, found her grappling with the natural darkness that comes with loving too much, Sixty Summers finds Stone claiming every part of herself: fire, fury, love, lust, longing. Touching on reference points as disparate as the avant-funk of
Talking Heads (on 'Break') the romantic 2am musings of
Serge Gainsbourg ('Free', 'Dance') and the sleek, ecstatic synth work of Lorde's Melodrama ('Substance'), Sixty Summers is an album you can dance to and one you can lose yourself in completely.
Limited tickets remaining for exclusive for exclusive Sydney shows
Thursday 25 February | The Factory Theatre, Sydney NSW (Two shows; 6pm and 9pm)
Friday 26 February | The Factory Theatre, Sydney NSW (Two shows; 6pm and 9pm)
