Acclaimed guitarist/singer/songwriter Myriam Gendron has announced her new album Mayday, out May 10th on Thrill Jockey & Feeding Tube Records. Along with the album’s announcement, Gendron has shared first single “Long Way Home,” a spirited, bounding crusade informed as much by folk traditions as it is pop forms, buoyed by the deft playing of fellow guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three).
Gendron explains on “Long Way Home”:
“This was one of the first songs I wrote for the album. I wanted to write a song with verses and a chorus, which was a bit of a challenge for me, as I’m more used to ballads without a chorus. I also wanted to continue the work I’d started on Ma délire, where I’d begun to experiment with songwriting inspired by tradition. But the aim of such a process is to go beyond a mere exercise in quotations. The result has to be internally coherent and reflect emotion in a way that’s fair and true. And it has to be a pleasant song to listen to, even for those who don’t know my sources of inspiration. I feel I’ve met that challenge with “Long Way Home”, which is in a way my first pop song, thanks to the contributions of Cédric Dind-Lavoie, Jim White and Marisa Anderson. We made jokes while recording it in the studio. Jim isn’t used to playing in this style, and it made him smile a lot. He said he felt like Mick Fleetwood! This song opens the album with the idea of a symbolic shipwreck (“when my great ship went down”, a reference to the popular song “It Was Sad When That Great Ship Went Down” about the sinking of the Titanic) and the retreat that follows. The words of the refrain “Mother make my bed” are also very old, and are a recurring motif in traditional songs about returning home (sometimes to die).”
Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound on her acclaimed previous releases Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma délire –Songs of love, lost & found (2021). Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White, whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base. Additional players this time include Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lavoie (a fellow fan of trad/avant dynamism), Bill Nace (Body/Head) and saxophonist Zoh Amba (whose horn actually gets the final “word”). Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar.
Myriam Gendron will be touring extensively in support of Mayday in 2024, kicking off with Big Ears Festival and a North American tour this Spring where Gendron will be joined by Jim White and Marisa Anderson’s duo on select dates, and Canadian shows with Kurt Vile & the Violators, with more dates to be announced.
