Katie Melua's 'In Winter' Featuring 25-Member Georgian Gori Women's Choir Out October 14 (BMG)

Katie Melua’s seasonal new album ‘In Winter’ finds one of the UK’s most successful recording artists of the millennium returning to her native country of Georgia and recording this stunning, ethereal project with the 25-member Gori Women’s Choir. The project required Katie and an engineer to fly to Georgia with 12 boxes of equipment and build a DIY studio in a community center there. The 10-track collection is deeply rich with personal stories and cultural history, from surprising selections by Joni Mitchell, a traditional Ukrainian carol and Rachmaninoff to original songs inspired by Georgia’s civil war and the commercialism of the holiday season. ‘In Winter’ will be released October 14 on BMG.

Katie Melua has sold over 11 million albums and over 1 million concert tickets. A singer, songwriter and guitarist, with six studio albums to her name, on ‘In Winter’ Melua takes the role of co-producer for the first time. The discovery in 2014 of a recording by Gori Women’s Choir was her spark for the record. With a vision to create a winter-themed project centered around the Georgian choir’s polyphonic sound that dates back to ancient traditions, Katie enlisted world-renowned choral composer Bob Chilcott to arrange the vocal parts.

In late 2015 Katie and Adam ‘Cecil’ Bartlett (whose engineering credits include the likes of PJ Harvey and Marianne Faithfull) flew to Georgia to begin recording with the choir. She says, “There were many unknowns: we weren’t established producers; we were building a studio; the choir had never recorded with headphones; Cecil didn’t speak a word of Georgian and could I effectively communicate to the choir how I wanted this record to sound?”

One of the first songs recorded was the album’s opening track “The Little Swallow,” a traditional Ukrainian carol first arranged in 1916 and adapted for the West as “Carol Of The Bells.” “It felt right to sing the piece in its original language. Ukrainian belongs to the eastern Slavic language and is close to Russian which is widely spoken throughout Georgia,” Katie explains. “Perfect World,” the first new song written by Katie since the release of her last studio album, was brought to life with the addition of the choir. “Nunc Dimittis” from Rachmaninoff’s “All-Night Vigil,” written 2 years before the Russian Revolution in 1917, was a challenge to record but was central to Katie’s vision for the record. “I had to have it on the album; it took me close to the mythical notion I have from my youth of the Russian forest, frozen and covered in snow, and of my Granddad’s tales of escaping from a Siberian labour camp. 

The album reflects Katie’s dual culture – born in the ex-Soviet country of Georgia, she moved with her parents and younger brother to Belfast aged nine, and became a British citizen in 2005. The melody of the Romanian carol “Leganelul Lui Lisus (Cradle Song),” led Katie to write “Plane Song” on which she recalls playing with her brother in old, rusty Soviet aircraft littered across various fields in Georgia after the civil war. “A Time To Buy” is both literal – the commercialism of Christmas, overwhelming (particularly to a young Katie arriving in the West) yet joyful - and allegorical – the self-judgement, anxiety and fears of the ‘have-it-all’ woman.

The album artwork was done by London-based Thai illustrator Niroot Puttapipat. On a trip to her local bookshop Katie discovered some of his work – he’s illustrated such notable book titles as The Nutcracker, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khattám, and Jane Austen’s Emma. Puttapipat works only by hand, creating this artwork with paper, pen, pencil and scalpel.

TRACK LIST

The Little Swallow
River
Perfect World
Cradle Song
A Time To Buy
Plane Song
If You Are So Beautiful
Dreams On Fire
All-Night Vigil
O Holy Night