New York, NY (Top40 Charts) English trio the Staves - sisters Emily,
Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor - have released their first new album in six years, Good Woman, out now on Nonesuch Records in the US, available here. The Staves mark the album's release with a live-streamed, ticketed concert from the London venue Lafayette tonight. The performance will celebrate the trio's musical career, from their debut album to the new record, with a mix of intimate stripped back performances and songs with a full band.
The album is featured on NPR's All Songs Considered today, whose
Robin Hilton exclaims: "The gloriously beautiful sounds of The Staves... Wowzers... Their voices are just extraordinary together... They're billed as a folk trio... but man, this record is so much more than that ... A beautiful and powerful record."
"It's a brilliant record, their new, fuller sound paying dividends," exclaims Record Collector in its five-star review. "It sounds cathartic to have recorded, and it's cathartic to listen to." The album earns four stars from Mojo, NME, Mojo, Clash, Gigwise, DIY, Guardian, Times, Independent, and Uncut, which says "their three-part blood harmonies form the shimmering centre of an elaborate, album-long soundscape.
Good Woman was written and recorded in a time of tremendous turmoil and change for the band, between the ending of relationships, the death of their beloved mother, and the birth of Emily's first child. Produced by John Congleton, the album is a testament to the Stavely-Taylors' strength and that of other women; to sisters, mothers, and daughters; to love, loss, and change; and to trying to be a good woman.
The band explains: "We have been working on this for a long time and are thrilled to share the title track. When we think about making this album we think about moments and snapshots of all the different contexts we were in as it was made. Living in each other's pockets and then living with oceans between us. Of voice notes and field recordings and ideas in emails sent across continents. We think of homesickness and family. Of being an outsider. Of endless notebooks and scraps of paper. Of studios in the winter and recordings under the summer sun. Of rainy London days and long American nights with coffees and beers, dogs, and cats. We think of love. Big, big love. Our Mum. Our Dad. Our friends. And of loss. Death and birth. Womanhood, motherhood. Sisterhood.
"And coming home."
The trio recently released two new songs: "Nazareth" and the Good Woman album track "Trying," marking the band's first new music since their collaborative EP with the New York based chamber ensemble yMusic in 2017. The band has been busy in the six years since the release of their acclaimed second album, If I Was.
Jessica contributed vocals to Leonard Cohen's final, posthumous record Thanks for The Dance, which was produced by his son, Adam Cohen. And all three sang on a handful of tracks for Paul Weller's recent album, On Sunset, in addition to performing with artists like Lucy Rose, Bon Iver, and Flyte over the years.
