Band: Charlotte Cornfield
Album: The Shape Of Your Name
VÖ: 05.04.2019
Label: Next Door Records / Outside Music / Bertus Musikvertrieb GmbH
Website: https://charlottecornfield.com/
“You free yourself when you take away the script,” says Toronto songwriter Charlotte Cornfield. “That’s where this record came from, dismantling patterns and embracing the process.” Cornfield’s third full length, The Shape Of Your Name, is set to arrive April 5 via Outside Music’s new imprint Next Door Records. “I’ve long been an admirer of Charlotte’s music and knew she had this record in her,” says Outside Music Managing Director Evan Newman. “It’s an absolute honour to have The Shape of Your Name be the first release on Next Door Records. We’re really looking forward to building a roster of diverse and compelling artists to share with the world. With the industry evolving and thriving, it became a focus for us to expand our label and thus adding a new imprint is a very exciting opportunity.” Today, Charlotte shares the first single from the new LP “Andrew” which received its national radio premiere this past weekend via The Strombo Show and will be available everywhere on January 18. Cornfield says “Andrew” could be “a song to a friend or a romantic partner but at its core it’s note to self, a reminder to step back and look at the bigger picture instead of dwelling on the minutia. We all have friends who we want to shake sometimes because their priorities feel out of whack, but on the flip side of that sometimes we’re that friend who needs shaking. When things get messy and absurd it helps be able to laugh at yourself, to laugh with someone, to shake it off and move forward.”
The Shape Of Your Name has a more honed studio sound than her scrappier 2016 release Future Snowbird, and for good reason: it was recorded in 5 different sessions over the course of 3 years. The songs are her strongest and most striking to date - contemplative and contemporary, funny and heart-wrenching - and they’ve got that stuck-in-your-head-for-days quality that Cornfield is known for. The Shape Of Your Name features a star-studded cast of collaborators including (but not limited to) Grammy-winning engineer Shawn Everett, Broken Social Scene members Brendan Canning, Kevin Drew, and Charles Spearin, and Montreal songwriter Leif Vollebekk.
“My initial intention wasn’t to make a record at all,” Charlotte muses. “The whole thing kind of happened by accident. I went to The Banff Centre to do a residency and came out with these recordings that I knew I wanted to use for something but wasn’t sure what.” She brought the unfinished songs to her former roommate Nigel Ward in Montreal. “He fell into the producer role seamlessly. We took it slow and just tried things for a while until the vision settled in. There was no rush. It was freeing, and it gave the songs a lot of breathing room to develop.” For the past four years Cornfield has been booking and managing Burdock Music Hall, a small venue in the west end of Toronto. The job has offered her stability and a strong sense of place in Toronto’s bursting-at-the-gills music community. She’s also an in-demand drummer and side musician, and has worked closely with Tim Darcy of Ought, Molly Burch, Adrian Underhill, and members of Lake Street Dive. She has toured extensively in North America and Europe and has supported a huge range of artists including Broken Social Scene, Anais Mitchell, Daniel Romano, and Sam Amidon.
PRAISE FOR CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD
“Her songwriting is ravenous …work in the tradition of Dylan or Townes Van Zandt” - The Globe And Mail
“ever-sharpening songwriter’s mill smartly constructed and executed … 2016’s first highlight” - Toronto Star
“Cornfield has proven her prowess in songwriting, making incredibly personal songs ring universal with listeners, creating a small but very inclusive world that one simply must submerge themselves in immediately” - CBC Music
“great performances…endearingly clever …landing in delightfully unexpected places” - Exclaim!
“a collection of vibrant, no-nonsense folk songs” - NOW Magazine
“a charming and breezy rung in the ladder to her inevitable fame and fortune” - BeatRou
