Anaïs Mitchell has announced her first original solo album in a decade will be released early next year.
The self-titled album – which is released on January 28 through BMG – features contributions from her Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman and The National’s Aaron Dessner, among others.
Mitchell has also released the lead single, ‘Bright Star’, accompanied by a music video from Jay Sansone. Listen below:
“During the first pandemic summer I was staying on the family farm where I grew up, in a little house that belonged to my grandparents when they were alive. I could see the stars for the first time in a long time,” she said of the track in a statement.
“I wasn’t traveling anywhere, or even doing much of anything, for the first time in a long time. ‘Bright Star’ is about looking back on years of restless pursuit and making peace with the source of that longing: the Muse, the Great Unknown, the One That Got Away – those things that motivate us that we never can touch.”
Mitchell’s last original solo album was 2012’s ‘Young Man In America’. Since then, her musical production Hadestown, named after her 2010 album of the same name, made its stage debut and earned her multiple Tony Awards and a Grammy. She also released a compilation LP, ‘Xoa’, in 2014.
Recently, Mitchell collaborated with Big Red Machine, the collaborative project of Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. She featured on the tracks ‘Latter Days’, ‘Phoenix’ and ‘New Auburn’ for their album ‘How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?’.
Anaïs Mitchell’s self-titled album tracklist:
1. ‘Brooklyn Bridge’
2. ‘Bright Star’
3. ‘Revenant’
4. ‘On Your Way (Felix Song)’
5. ‘Real World’
6. ‘Backroads’
7. ‘Little Big Girl’
8. ‘Now You Know’
9. ‘The Words’
10. ‘Watershed’