September 2020

September 4, 2020

'I Can Still Hear You' The New Album from Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche Out October 30

SUZZY ROCHE AND HER DAUGHTER LUCY WAINWRIGHT ROCHE SHED SOME LIGHT ON OUR TROUBLED TIMES ON THEIR THIRD COLLABORATION, I CAN STILL HEAR YOU

Recorded from their New York City homes during the quarantine, this 11-track album, due October 30, showcases soul-searching, thought-provoking originals and perfectly chosen covers, along with guest appearances by Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls

This past spring, Suzzy Roche and her daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche headed down to Nashville to make their third album together. Suzzy had written a batch of songs, informed both by personal loss - her sister, Maggie, and her mother died in 2017 - and her sense of the societal havoc stemming from the 2016 election. Suzzy wrote these close-to-the-heart, close-to-the-bone songs with Lucy always in mind to sing them.

The two were just a week or so into their recording sessions with producer Jordan Brooke Hamlin (who had produced Lucy’s last two solo albums) when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Suzzy and Lucy had to return quickly to their homes in Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively, for the quarantine lockdown. It was a scary, bleak time but they didn’t abandon the album, even though Suzzy admits she felt like giving up many times — “like, why bother, the world is coming to an end.” However, she credits Lucy, Jordan, Helen Vaskevitch (assistant engineer), Stewart Lerman (who wound up mixing the record) and Dick Connette (StorySound Records) with keeping the project going. “Although this wasn’t the plan we originally made, and although it was trying at times,” Lucy shares, “we made it work and I actually think this is my favorite of our duo recordings.”

I Can Still Hear You, conceived out of personal loss and turmoil, arrives at a time of global loss and turmoil. The 11 thought-provoking tracks explore themes of good and evil, youth and mortality, the absurd and the serious, the real and the imagined, and the connection between what is present and what is gone. Each of their albums together have documented a specific time and this one, according to Suzzy, “probably is the darkest, but at the same time, it’s the most fanciful too. This time, there seemed an extra urgency about it.”

 “I Think I Am a Soul,” which features Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers on guitar, stands as one of I Can Still Hear You’s cornerstones. On it, Lucy’s gossamer vocals convey the song’s ponderings of life, aging, and what lies beyond. “Ruins” and “Joseph D” delve deep into the question of “why’s a human heart so mean?,” which is asked by the destructive young boy in “Ruins.” The latter tune, about a cruel misogynist, is marked by curious child-like details (Joseph sleeps with a teddy bear and wants a lollipop). Suzzy says that while “those images are jarring, but, for me, they ring true. You run the risk of not being taken seriously though, but I am dead serious.”

“Little” and “Swan Duck Song” epitomize Suzzy’s interest in how a child’s imagination contains both playfulness and terror. An ode to the children’s book character Stuart Little, “Little” isn’t a cute tune but a rather harrowing journey that ultimately is about perseverance (and contains the marvelous couplet: “Look at me now, I hardly exist/The song I sing can’t even be shushed.”). “Swan Duck Song,” similarly, uses its deceptively simple fable-like setting to tell a sobering story about waddling your way through despair to get to a better place.

Animals — around a dozen of them — appear throughout I Can Still Hear You, including the amazing cover of Connie Converse’s “Talkin’ Like You (Two Tall Mountains).” The haunting tune, which balances sadness and whimsy while discussing loss and loneliness, fits seamlessly with the album’s like-minded originals. As Lucy notes, “It’s funny how songs gather together in ways that you don’t even notice until they are on a recording together.”

Two other covers, “Factory Girl” and “Jane,” deliver portraits of undervalued women as well as offering nods to The Roches’ past. “Factory Girl,” a traditional ballad that appeared on The Roches’ 1980 record Nurds, features Indigo Girls’ Amy Ray on this version. Singing this song is something special for Lucy because she grew up listening to The Roches do the song and has performed with the Indigo Girls in recent years. “Jane” is a previously unreleased Maggie Roche song that Lucy has long loved and wanted to record. “It seems very appropriate that this version found a home on this album,” she says, as it addresses I Can Still Hear You’s themes of exploring the here and the gone, and the connection between the two.

I Can Still Hear You’s final cover, and the album’s final song, is its best-known tune, “Bein’ Green,” of Sesame Street fame. Suzzy admires how the tune’s “child-like, open honesty is radical,” while Lucy calls this Joe Raposo-penned composition the perfect closing number because it is “ a bit strange and funny and sad” just as the album is.

Fittingly, the title track is the one song that was wholly written during the quarantine. The track, Lucy’s only solo composition here, is composed of thoughts that came to her during this strange, unsettling time. “I was thinking a lot about the veil between what used to be and what is and about links that still exist, even when circumstances have drastically changed or when people have died.”

 “Get the Better” is the other track written during the pandemic, although it was started years earlier. A dream-like tune, swirling with ghosts, angels and thoughts about mortality, represents the closest that Suzzy and Lucy have gotten to co-writing a song. Lucy began it 15 years ago and has been rewriting the tune, unsatisfyingly, since then. During the quarantine, she handed it off to her mom, who — as Lucy readily admits — “turned it into what it should be.”

I Can Still Hear You marks the third collaboration between Suzzy and Lucy, following 2013’s award-winning Fairytale and Myth and 2016’s acclaimed album, Mud & Apples. Even though Suzzy has had a long, storied career — which includes the beloved Roches, solo work, acting and writing — she says that she wouldn’t be singing anymore if she wasn’t singing with Lucy. “I’ve always preferred harmonizing to singing solo. I hear melodies with harmony, more like a choir than a lead singer and background singer. To me, Lucy’s presence is essential to balance mine. It’s just more fun to do it with her — and interesting.

Over the past dozen or so years, Lucy has racked up critical accolades and a loyal, ever-expanding fandom through her solo work and live performances. Besides teaming with her mother, Lucy also has done an album with her half-sister Martha Wainwright and performed with various other members of the Wainwright family as well as such acts as Indigo Girls, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Neko Case.

I Can Still Hear You stands as a special project for both Lucy and Suzzy. “In a time when so many people are suffering,” Suzzy confides, “you hope that you can put something out into the world that will comfort, not in any saccharine way, but in the truest way you know how to.” Lucy adds, “I think the impact of this time on the music and on us remains unseen in some way. It’s still unfolding, but it feels like a mysteriously timed project and I really am glad to get it out into the world.”

September 8, 2020

Video Premiere and Interview: Suzzy Roche & Lucy Wainwright Roche "I Can Still Hear You"

Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche Say "I Can Still Hear You"

I Can Still Hear You is the new 11-song set from mother/daughter duo Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche. Releasing 30 October via StorySound Records, the LP features a wide range of original compositions as well as a carefully selected group of covers. Recorded between Nashville, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, the collection is a welcome collaboration from two venerated singer-songwriters. It also serves as a testament to the human spirit in a time of darkness.

Sessions for the record began quietly enough with producer Jordan Brooke Hamlin at the helm. Though work continued through the tornado that tore through Nashville in the early spring, the mother and daughter duo returned to their Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York comes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Work, however, didn't cease even though their lives had been turned upside down. With help from assistant engineer Helen Vaskevitch, the venerable Stewart Lerman (who mixed), and close friend Dick Connette (Story Sound Records), the mother and daughter duo were able to complete the record. (The record also features appearances from Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls.)

The lead single, which also serves as the titular tune, was written by Wainwright Roche after returning from Nashville, at a time when New York was transformed from the City That Never Sleeps to a relative ghost town. "I had hoped that I would finish some songs in time to get them on the record", she says. "I started this from scratch; I wrote it in the period when things were shut down. No takeout, no one on the streets. Empty and silent except for sirens."

The isolation revealed the stark contrast between pandemic life and pre-pandemic life. "There was a thread of connections that started web out between people", she recalls. "There are people I hadn't seen in a while, people I would normally see but couldn't see. You start connecting through the Internet. But we were profoundly alone. And yet people were reaching for each other. There was this combination of disconnection and heightened connection. That's what I was thinking about."

She adds that she was also contemplating the passing of her aunt Maggie Roche in 2017. "There's a line a song about her. I was reaching across space to connect", Wainwright Roche adds.

Creating a video for the track provided other challenges. "We were in shock with everything that was happening", she adds. "The song is so specific about everything that was happening in New York at that time. I looked to see what I had in terms of images. Everything in the video is stuff that I happened to have on my phone, that I happened to take randomly. It's not a slickly produced video, but I think it's right for what it is."

"I Can Still Hear You" is a testament to Wainwright Roche's prodigious gifts as a songwriter; it's a powerful statement about connection amidst isolation and art's ability to heal and unite.

Wainwright Roche spoke more about the album from her home in Brooklyn.

You weren't too far into making this album when you and your mother needed to return to New York. How did you go about finishing the record while in quarantine?

We had had a really immersive ten days of making the record. I was making meals for the three of us who were hunkered down at Jordan's studio. That's one totally insular experience with a lot of creative flow. We were together during the day and into the night. When we came [back to New York], my mom and I weren't even seeing each other at all. I did all my vocals in my apartment, and she did all of hers in her apartment. We sent things down to Jordan, who was adding small parts down in Nashville.

There were a couple of weeks where we were working through computer programs: Screen sharing with everyone looking at the same ProTools session, everyone being able to hear the same thing. It's amazing that that can be done. And also not. I don't think it was ideal, but it was what had to happen. We had to think on our feet about how to keep the momentum going and how to stay connected.

I've had to see my doctor a few times during the pandemic and had to use Telehealth. They were short appointments, but it was exhausting just going through everything over the screen rather than in person. I can't imagine making a record that way.

I think it is extra exhausting, and when you're trying to listen, you might also be hearing other interference. I'm simultaneously grateful for the opportunity to do it because it allowed us to finish the project, but we missed our time being together and the magic of all of that.

There are a handful of covers on this record. One of them is "Being Green".

My mom had learned that a few years ago for a climate change benefit that we performed at. I don't think either of us had ever really interacted with the song, a song like that that's so famous and iconic, you hear it, and it just washes over you without you paying much attention. I think when we learned it, we realized what a sweet, strange, heartfelt, interesting song it is.

It has the association with Kermit the Frog, and there are a lot of creatures on the record, different animals, it has a dark fairytale thing happening. That song has this creature association and a childlike sensibility but not totally. We ended the record with it because it's the meeting place for a lot of the [themes] on the record.

"I Can Still Hear You" translates beyond your personal experience. Is it comforting to know that music is still around, despite maybe not being able to see people?

In a way, it's a great time to share new music because people can't get it any other way. You get to send out this postcard at a time when people might be looking for a new thing to hear. I think it's a good time to connect that way. I've done a couple of concerts at home. It's been amazing. It was not an easy sell for me because my show is usually very audience-focused. I thought, "How am I going to do this?" It was amazing to see people sign on, ready to listen.

Many people are talking about how they miss concerts, and I would think, for a performer, there is the element of missing shows because it's work and because it's connecting with the fans. But you're probably also missing the people that you connect with at different venues in different cities, the musicians you see on the road.

I do a lot of work as an opening act, so there are a lot of people I would see throughout the year. It's a definite loss. Many of the places that I play by myself tend to be smaller and community-driven and labors of love. Running a small venue in this country is not a big money-making venture. I think so much about those places and the people who are at the helm of trying to keep them going. I want them to survive and still be there on the other side. I do think about landing in different towns and different spots that have become like home.

Watch the video and read the full article HERE

September 21, 2020

Video Premiere: Suzzy Roche & Lucy Wainwright Roche "I Think I Am A Soul"

Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche Weigh in on “I Think I Am A Soul”

American Songwriter

Over the spring, legendary vocalizer Suzzy Roche and her daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche headed down to Nashville and record their third album together. 

Entitled  I Can Still Hear You, the duo were a good week into the sessions when the country shut down after the COVID-19 pandemic forced most Americans to quarantine in their homes. The two were just a week or so into their recording sessions with producer Jordan Brooke Hamlin (who had produced Lucy’s last two solo albums) when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Suzzy and Lucy had to return quickly to their homes in Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively, for lockdown. Yet that didn’t stop Roche and Wainwright from completing the album, working alongside a skeleton team that includes Helen Vaskevitch (assistant engineer), Stewart Lerman (who wound up mixing the record) and Dick Connette (StorySound Records) to finish this 11-track set filled with both originals and covers. 

“Although this wasn’t the plan we originally made, and although it was trying at times,” Lucy says of the sessions, “we made it work and I actually think this is my favorite of our duo recordings.”  

There’s even guest appearances from Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls throughout the record, particularly this track, the video of which American Songwriter is honored to premiere today. Both the song and its visual accompaniment were created in memory of Suzzy’s sister and bandmate Maggie Roche, who passed away from breast cancer in early 2017.

“When my sister Maggie died, I couldn’t imagine going on without her,” Suzzy tells American Songwriter. “One day this song came to me as I walked around my neighborhood in NYC. I felt that Maggie was talking to me. We lived blocks away from each other and used to run into each other all the time. Janie Geiser, who made the video, is one of my favorite visual artists, and she captured the aloneness that paradoxically is a big part of living in a city of millions. I wanted Lucy to sing the bulk of the song because her voice is pure, like an old soul.  And Emily Saliers and I traded off on the acoustic guitar part. Very cool.” 

I Can Still Hear You comes out on October 30, and stands as a special project for both Lucy and Suzzy as these two key figures in the iconic Roche-Wainwright multiverse hope the sweet innocence of this most beguiling collection will resonate with listeners in need of some levity.

“In a time when so many people are suffering,” Suzzy proclaims, “you hope that you can put something out into the world that will comfort, not in any saccharine way, but in the truest way you know how to.” 

Lucy adds, “I think the impact of this time on the music and on us remains unseen in some way. It’s still unfolding, but it feels like a mysteriously timed project and I really am glad to get it out into the world.”

Read the full article and watch the video HERE