Amythyst Kiah Redraws The Lines Of Roots Music - And Then Colors Outside Them - On New Album Wary + Strange | Shore Fire Media

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16 April, 2021Print

Amythyst Kiah Redraws The Lines Of Roots Music - And Then Colors Outside Them - On New Album Wary + Strange

Amythyst Kiah Redraws The Lines Of Roots Music - And Then Colors Outside Them - On New Album Wary + Strange

Out June 18 On Rounder Records

Listen to New Single “Wild Turkey” HERE 

 

Today, Amythyst Kiah announces her new album and Rounder Records debut, Wary + Strange, to be released on June 18. The collection - featuring eleven songs all written or co-written by the artist - finds Amythyst redrawing the lines of roots music, and then coloring completely outside of them with a collision of styles that is fearless, iconoclastic and exhilarating. Expanding on the role she staked out in Our Native Daughters - the Grammy-nominated, all-women-of-color supergroup she co-founded with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla and Allison Russell - Amythyst’s writing on Wary + Strange is raw yet nuanced, as she expresses grief, alienation, and ultimately the hard-won triumph of total self acceptance.

Produced by Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Amos Lee, Andrew Bird) and recorded at LA’s legendary Sound City Studios, with a musical A-Team that included guitarist Blake Mills(Bob Dylan, Alabama Shakes), keyboardist Ethan Gruska (Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius), bassists Wendy Melvoin (Prince & The Revolution, Madonna, Neil Finn) and Gabe Noel(Kamasi Washington, Father John Misty), and pedal steel player Rich Hinman (k.d. lang, Tanya Tucker) among others, Wary + Strange is a deeply immersive body of work and the culmination of years of tireless effort and exploration. Throughout the album, the Tennessee-bred Amythyst uses inventive rhythms and textures to create a sound that is genuinely new. But the sonic grandeur of Wary + Strange never eclipses the visceral impact of Amythyst’s storytelling, which is unflinching in its examination of her mother’s suicide, the realities of being a Black and queer woman living in the Bible Belt, her own struggles with alcohol and more.

To accompany today’s announcement, Amythyst has shared the album track “Wild Turkey,” a stark recounting of her mother’s death and its aftermath. Punctuated by doleful bursts of melotron and building to one of the album’s most powerful moments of release, the quietly devastating song charts Amythyst’s journey from denial to acceptance. “Wild Turkey in the car seat,” she sings, “the bottle’s empty, I hope it gave her some relief.”

LISTEN TO “WILD TURKEY”

“Wild Turkey” follows the February release of another track from Wary + Strange, the radically reimagined version of her Grammy-nominated song “Black Myself.” Departing from the mid-tempo acoustic original recorded by Our Native Daughters, Amythyst’s new version amplifies the song’s kinetic tension via stacked vocals and a wash of electric guitar. The song was hailed by The New York TimesRolling StoneMTVBillboard, and NPR who called it a “breakthrough for an artist on the rise.” The accompanying video for “Black Myself” debuted on MTV, BET and CMT platforms. Watch it HERE.

Pre-order/pre-save Wary + Strange

Wary + Strange Track List:

  1. Soapbox
  2. Black Myself
  3. Wild Turkey 
  4. Hangover Blues
  5. Fancy Drones (Fracture Me)
  6. Firewater 
  7. Tender Organs
  8. Ballad of Lost
  9. Sleeping Queen
  10. Opaque
  11. Soapbox Reprise 

 

Amythyst Kiah Tour Dates:

April 17 - Blacksburg, VA - Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech

May 21 - Freight Train Blues (virtual)

May 27 - Chesterfield, VA - Chesterfield County Public Library

May 28 - Savannah, GA - Savannah Music Festival

June 5 - Davenport, IA - Adler Theater

June 13 - Charlestown, WV - Mountain Stage Radio Show @ Cultural Center Theatre

June 17 - Raleigh, NC - AJ Fletcher Opera House @ Duke Energy Center

June 18 - Abbeville, SC - Juneteenth Celebration @ Abbeville Opera House

June 19 - Galax, VA - Blue Ridge Music Center

June 20 - Gloucester, VA - Flat Iron Crossroads

June 25 - Knoxville, TN - The Mill & Mine

July 17 - Stone Ridge, NY - Stone Ridge Orchard

July 24 - Malvern, PA - People's Light Theater

Aug. 2 - Chautauqua, NY - Chautauqua Amphitheater

Sept. 10 - Bristol, VA - Bristol Rhythm & Roots Festival

Sept. 23 - Yarmouth, MA - The Music Room Gallery & Wine Bar

Sept. 24 - Bentonville, AR - FreshGrass

 

FOLLOW AMYTHYST KIAH:

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For more information, contact Shore Fire Media:

Matt Hanks | mhanks@shorefire.com

Andrea Evenson | aevenson@shorefire.com

Jennifer Valentin | jvalentin@shorefire.com