My vision was not clear going into this project so it took me a long time to make it. It felt very much like fumbling in the dark for velvet. This is the first record I have produced and helped to engineer. There was a lot of learning and unlearning. This feels like my first album as an adult. The songs come from a different kind of experience than my first two albums… living changes a person.”  – Sonya Kitchell

 

Sonya Kitchell returns after seven years with We Come Apart, her first full-length album since 2008. The 12-track collection is due Jan. 22 on Rockwood Music Hall Recordings/Thirty Tigers and features the sensuous debut single “Mexico.”

 

LISTEN/SHARE “MEXICO” HERE

 

An album of powerful piano infused folk fleshed out with percussion, horns, & strings, We Come Apartsees Sonya stepping into the role of producer for the first time and coming into a new version of herself.

 

Kitchell laid the foundation for We Come Apart with multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, a catalytic force in the creation of the album. Cellist Gyda Valtysdottir, of the Icelandic band Mum, and a host of notable friends including Dap-Kings Horn Section on multiple tracks.

 

Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes can be heard in his flugelhorn arrangements on “We Come Apart,” while high school comrade Alex Chakour played an array of instruments, from ukulele to synth bass. Skye Steele’s haunting strings add poignant tension and release. Isabel Castellvi, Findlay Brown, Neal Evans (of Soulive), and drummers Miles Arntzen, Adam Deitch, Lee Madeloni and Mathias Kunzlilent their distinct spark.

 

Recorded twice – once with money she raised through a PledgeMusic campaign and the second time with funds she scraped together herself – We Come Apart caps a period of growth and reinvention for Kitchell who was 17 when she released her first album Words Came Back to Me in 2006. Kitchell followed that acclaimed debut with the 2008 LP The Storm and an EP collection of string quartetsConvict of Conviction in 2010.

 

The time between solo releases has been prolific. Kitchell spent a year collaborating with the legendary Herbie Hancock on his Grammy-winning album, River: The Joni Letters.  She has graced the stage at Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl, the Montreaux Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival, and Central Park Summerstage. She has appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, Live at Abbey Road, and won two Grammys—for her work on River: The Joni Letters and Tedeschi Trucks Band’sRevelator.

 

She relocated from her hometown in the hills of western Massachusetts to New York City, spent time in parts of Europe and Asia, worked as a side musician and a songwriter-for-hire, learned the technical side of recording music and become an accomplished photographer.

 

We Come Apart explores the remnants of things, the space in between our atoms. The album represents years of Sonya’s learning from masters, unlearning expectations, and re-emerging as a vivid, fresh voice.

 

WATCH/SHARE:

Sonya Kitchell perform with Herbie Hancock & Joni Mitchell

Sonya Kitchell performs on Letterman

 

Sonya Kitchell: Website - Facebook - Twtter - Soundcloud - YouTube