New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Folk artist Liv Greene will release her sophomore record, Deep Feeler, on October 18, 2024 via Free Dirt Records. The smart collection of poignant storytelling and beautiful melodies is a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance. It's feminine, queer, and defiant. It's also the official arrival of Greene, as she wants the world to know her.
"For a long time, writing was an escape from myself. I was not okay with who I was. I was trying not to think about myself. These songs are a healing or reframing of my relationship with the craft," Greene explains. "Now, rather than an escape from myself, songwriting is communion with myself."
Greene is sharing a music video for the album's title track produced by an all-queer crew, including director
Molly Trunnell and movement coach Lee Myles. "I'm aware I'm a liar," Greene sings in the very first line. The confession and warning crackles in the immediate pause after Greene utters it. Then, she continues with heartbreaking clarity: "Always lying to myself about my expectations." This self-awareness, this embracing of imperfection, appears throughout the record as Greene expertly straddles the line between showcasing wisdom far beyond her years and remaining relatable to any mid-twenties woman trying to live authentically in a world that doesn't always make it easy to do so.
Of the title track, Greene offers, "I'd been toying with the idea of a song that's kind of like a manifesto: Like, yeah, I know I'm a little delusional and overly sensitive. I have relational trauma. I fall really hard and get hurt all the time because of it. But I am who I am, and I'm proud of that. I am proud of how deeply I feel things."
Just 24 years old at the time, Greene produced Deep Feeler herself, in collaboration with GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Matt Andrews (Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) and some additional help from friend and guitarist Jack Schneider (Vince Gill). Greene took her time. The result is 10 songs that transform the personal into the universal. Greene's vocals and guitar are the album's anchor, just as she wanted, and she called on friends--her "dream rhythm section," made up of upright bassist Hazel Royer and drummer Dominic Billett. The team tracked live to tape at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, and as the songs came, Greene realized she still wanted more: GRAMMY Award-winner
Sarah Jarosz on mandolin and harmonies, Elise Leavy on accordion and piano. Then pedal steel, electric guitar, organ, fiddle, and more came in for cameos, all in the service of the song.
With Deep Feeler, Greene isn't running from herself anymore. She has pried herself open and let real longing, frustration, and love break free. Then, she put it all in a song. By granting herself the permission to feel, she has given us that same permission, too.
"I used to write fiction, primarily--I don't think any of my early songs were from a place of actual heartbreak," Greene says. "This record is completely autobiographical. For people who are in a period of life when words can inspire them to come to acceptance, I hope it helps. For others, I hope they can find comfort in just the sound of the music. These songs are for anyone."
