Acclaimed Catalan singer-songwriter Joana Serrat has announced details of her new album Big Wave and released the powerful lead single “The Cord”.
“Everything felt different,” says Serrat of Big Wave, her sixth full-length release, which strides boldly in a new direction, its songs charged with a fresh power. Like her last two albums Hardcore From The Heart (2021) and Dripping Springs (2017), Big Wave was recorded at The Echo Lab studio in Texas but this time with a new producer, Matt Pence (Jason Isbell, John Grant). Big Wave retains her characteristic use of reverb and pop melody, but is tighter, fiercer, shrouded in distortion, with an emotional and sonic ferocity because “I wanted to be more aggressive,” explains Joana “Because I was going through a period where I was feeling very uncomfortable.”
This period included the end of a long relationship and the beginning of another, entering a new decade of life, and the passing of her grandparents, whose deaths bookended the making of the album.
“I feel the cord has finally broken / Tangled up in my fingers, I / Swallow all of my love / I don’t know where it’s gone / I don’t know what to call myself anymore,” sings Joana on lead single and album opener “The Cord”.
“I felt pushed away from the world,” she explains. “I was close to my forties. You feel that you don't belong. The world that you belonged to just ended, and there's no place for you. You are not useful anymore. You feel not wanted.”
On her previous albums, Joana’s music engages in a tug-of-war between fragility and intensity, a dynamic that has caught the attention of major publications such as Mojo, Uncut, N.M.E., and The Guardian, as well as Lauren Laverne, Guy Garvey and Gideon Coe on their BBC 6 Music shows — a rare level of coverage for an artist from the small Catalan city of Vic. Her songs have been described as “torrents of familiar heartache made startling and luminous” (Uncut), while the 2021 single “Demons” was described as having “the hazy allure of Mazzy Star with a dash of cosmic country” (The Times).
Pence’s fresh outlook led to fresh ways of working, like starting with a cappella demos, to which he added drums, and then a harmoniser, instruments that supply the album with much of its force. That collective spirit and spontaneity shaped the album, while also on board were co-producer and longtime collaborator Joey McClellan (Midlake, Rufus Wainwright, John Grant), McKenzie Smith (St Vincent, Sharon Van Etten) and several of Joana’s Midlake and Mercury Rev friends.‘Big Wave’ was mastered by GRAMMY nominated engineer and audio preservationist Jessica Thompson (Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile).
Serrat’s teenage explorations into the reverb-heavy 1990s sounds of indie-rock, dream-pop and noise-rock are particularly felt on the second half of Big Wave, which contains more “classic Joana stuff”. But the contemporary, experimental elements that dominate side A emerge from elsewhere: the sonic and lyrical content of Low’s Hey What, and the deep, dark textures of Oneohtrix Point Never.
“This is the foundation of who I am now,” concludes Joana. “I want Big Wave to have its own path. Hopefully it's a beautiful one, that pays justice to what the album represents.
Joana Serrat Big Wave
01 The Cord
02 Feathers
03 Freewheel
04 Sufferer
05 Tight To You
06 This House
07 Are You Still Here?
08 Big Lagoons
09 A Dream That Can Last
10 Broken Hearted
11 The Ocean
Big Wave is released June 7th on Great Canyon Records - Pre-order here
Praise for Joana Serrat:
“…her songs stir like emotional weather fronts, squalls and torrents of familiar heartache made startling and luminous on an album full of haunted reflection
and soul-searching reverie.”
Uncut
“Joana Serrat writes beautifully fragile and diaphanous songs then surrounds them in arrangements of muscular force and intensity.”
Americana UK
“…this emotional indie rocker has the hazy allure of Mazzy Star
with a dash of cosmic country”
The Times (about the single “Demons”)
“Gorgeous - balances vintage jangle with just the right amount
of fluttering shoegaze”
The Guardian
"Like Mazzy Star guesting on an early Neil Young demo."
MOJO
“Evokes the sweeping alt-country of Lambchop. Gorgeous.”
N.M.E.
“You’re going to fall deeply in love with her… just amazing”
GUY GARVEY, BBC6 MUSIC
“ I’m a huge fan of hers. She just has an astonishing voice, very smart as well, I love her songwriting"
LAUREN LAVERNE, BBC 6 MUSIC
“It’s like Glasvegas and War On Drugs had a little musical baby
and what a bonny wee thing it is.”
RODDY HART, BBC RADIO SCOTLAND
