Keep Your Courage

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And mostly, my encounters with people if they do recognize me is just, Ms. Merchant, I really appreciate your work or it's very meaningful to me. And that's really a lovely exchange to have, and to meet people who feel like we already have some kind of relationship established. Keep Your Courage was recorded in Guilford Sound in Brattleboro, VT. It was produced by Natalie Merchant, recorded by Dave Snyder and mixed by Ryan Freeland. I'm traveling with a string quartet, so we'll approximate the arrangements," she continues. "But to have the brass section and the woodwinds, it's going to be blissful." Natalie Merchant has announced that her ninth studio album, Keep Your Courage, will be released by Nonesuch on April 14. It’s her first album of new material since 2014’s self-titled record.

Richard, Sam (March 6, 2023). "Send us your questions for Natalie Merchant!". Uncut . Retrieved April 12, 2023.Abena I met through doing a Get Out the Vote event. I'm part of the Hudson Valley Votes Coalition, and we invited the Resistance Revival Chorus to come up for this rally that we're doing. It was the biggest rally that had ever been held by the Democrats in the Hudson Valley, which was really gratifying. MERCHANT: (Singing) Tinctures, teas and your secret remedies and your voice like Buffy Sainte-Marie...

Elsewhere, love goes all the way up to population level. Merchant is well known for dealing with social issues in her writing, but on Keep Your Courage she’s less explicit about it. Still, there’s no mistaking that, beneath the funky horns and orchestral brass, “Tower of Babel” is a song about a world growing ever more divided. More subtle is “Song of Himself”, which she explains is “all about Walt Whitman and his kind of radical, expansive love of America.” I was raising my daughter, and I’m a single mom... My days are so full that it never occurred to me that I should sit down and write a song. I was just focused on so many other things. It’s an indulgence to sit down with the piano and sing. It got to the point where I forgot that I was a songwriter, or that I could write songs.” a b Shahen, Jim (April 12, 2023). "Natalie Merchant Lays Out a Feast on 'Keep Your Courage' ". No Depression . Retrieved April 12, 2023.Benitez-Eves, Tina (August 17, 2023). "Natalie Merchant Keeping Her Courage". American Songwriter. ISSN 0896-8993. OCLC 17342741 . Retrieved August 17, 2023. MERCHANT: Abena Koomson-Davis is the musical director of the Resistance Revival Chorus, and I met her through doing a Get Out the Vote event in the Hudson Valley. We actually staged the largest political event in the history of our area. And I just fell in love with her voice and her energy and told her that I would love to collaborate someday. And once I had these songs written, we went in the studio and put them together.

These songs are alchemy in the highest form possible.We all need to be reminded that such beauty exists.’ Major, Michael (March 30, 2023). "Natalie Merchant Debuts New Single 'Tower of Babel' ". Broadway World . Retrieved April 3, 2023.

Natalie Merchant on the web

Rascoe, Ayesha (April 9, 2023). "Natalie Merchant on album 'Keep Your Courage' ". Weekend Edition. NPR . Retrieved April 12, 2023. A literate, observant, thoughtful songwriter, champion of the dispossessed, admirer and interpreter of folk songs and sounds, and we hear that again on Keep Your Courage.’ Finan, Eileen (September 23, 2023). "Why Natalie Merchant Felt 'Grateful' After Losing Her Voice— And How Singing Is 'Better Than Ever' ". Lifestyle > Health. People . Retrieved September 26, 2023.

The album closes with the tender “The Feast of Saint Valentine,” a song that urges us to follow the courage in our hearts in the midst of the chaos and division around us because, Merchant sings, “Love will set you free and love will be your bonds/Love will win.” Pedder, Alan (April 21, 2023). "Natalie Merchant: "When I say keep your courage, I'm talking to myself as much as anyone"". The Line of Best Fit . Retrieved April 22, 2023. This album is infused with an existential and effusive desire to create unity in a world that can be so alienating. Written around the time of the MAGA insurrection, Merchant took heart in Whitman’s unwavering faith that a better America could emerge. “Although Jan 6 will always be a dark day, we’ve seen much darker days than that and Whitman lived through them,” she explains.But even as there's a thematic throughline on the record, each song is different orchestrally and musically. "They're all little intrinsic worlds unto themselves," Merchant says. Keep Your Courage is the natural progression of that path. Working with seven different arrangers and over two dozen musicians, it’s not her biggest project – 2011’s Leave Your Sleep takes that crown with 135 players – but it is her most ravishing. Merchant has never been one to do things half-heartedly, but every note and detail here feels deeply considered in a way that goes beyond her own strict standards. “I don’t believe in filler,” she tells me, firmly. “I get accused of being not prolific, but I just believe in quality over quantity.” RASCOE: 'Cause you started out in your early years with 10,000 Maniacs and other - is there anything you wish you knew then that you know now? Keep Your Courage" album by Natalie Merchant (Nonesuch) One of the things I really loved is you said the album is "a song cycle that maps the journey of a courageous heart." What drew your writing in that direction and when did you realize that's what you had landed on? Brandle, Lars (April 18, 2023). "Metallica Heading to U.K. Chart Summit With '72 Seasons' ". Billboard . Retrieved April 18, 2023.