Laura Veirs shares “Watch Fire” featuring Sufjan Stevens
Laura Veirs is set to release The Lookout, her tenth solo full-length album, on April 13th via Bella Union. After presenting lead single, “Everybody Needs You,” “a bright and expansive arrangement that echoes, purrs and flutters invitingly”, the singer-songwriter now shares “Watch Fire,” featuring Sufjan Stevens. Read the artist’s statement below, as told to Pitchfork.
“I’m not sure if you’ve heard wolves howling in the wild but there’s no mistaking their sound. It’s nothing like the howling of wind; it’s much more eerie and sinister. “Watch Fire” is about protecting the vulnerable among us and how I feel vulnerable, too, in this political climate. You can hear that in the lyric ‘underneath this dome of red / white dog circling overhead.”
“It was an honor to have Sufjan sing on this track as I admire him a lot. I heard his voice on this song when I wrote it. We’ve been friends for a long time and he’s given me quite a few artistic pep talks over the years. I sang on his Carrie and Lowell sessions so it’s nice to have him on my record this time around.” Listen now below…
A prolific songwriter for nearly twenty years, Laura Veirs proves the depth of her musical skill on her tenth solo album, The Lookout, released 13th April via Bella Union. Here is a batch of inimitable, churning, exquisite folk-pop songs; a concept album about the fragility of precious things. Produced by Grammy-nominated Tucker Martine, Veirs’ longtime collaborator, The Lookout is a soundtrack for turbulent times, full of allusions to protectors: the camper stoking a watch fire, a mother tending her children, a sailor in a crows nest and a lightning rod channelling energy.
“The Lookout is about the need to pay attention to the fleeting beauty of life and to not be complacent; it’s about the importance of looking out for each other,” says Veirs. “I’m addressing what’s happening around me with the chaos of post-election America, the racial divides in our country, and a personal reckoning with the realities of midlife: I have friends who’ve died; I struggle with how to balance life as an artist with parenting young children.”
Veirs will be touring the US and Europe throughout the Spring and will reach the UK in June.
The Lookout will be released 13th April via Bella Union.