Sarah Neufeld has been a favourite of ours for a long time, first conquering our ears with her 2013 beguiling debut album Hero Brother. With two magnificent solo albums under her belt, and a staggering collaborative album with Colin Stetson, the extraordinary composer and violinist is ready to dazzle us again with her eagerly anticipated third full-length album arriving this May. Entitled Detritus, the album stems from a collaboration initiated in 2015 with dancer/choreographer Peggy Baker. The partnership carried on and saw Neufeld performing and composing to Baker’s choreography, and heading on tour in February 2019. Neufeld felt like this live performance music could take another form, “as a distilled set of songs, refined and developed beyond the versions performed on stage”, as the press release explains, and started working on arranging the material that summer. To help her bring the album to life, she invited her Arcade Fire bandmate Jeremy Gara, Bell Orchestre bandmate Pietro Amato and Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Stuart Bogie. Neufeld commented on the tracks that make up Detritus:

“I was inspired by both a sense of interior aloneness, and a sense of deep intimacy. Within both, a profound questioning of identity and intention, and ultimately, a grieving over one’s former sense of self. The stories we’ve told ourselves that we can no longer believe. Nestled within deep layers of comfort, familiarity, and solace, I’m able to repeat myself again and again, never learning, never looking back. Simultaneously becoming wiser and more ignorant as the years wind on, beauty and grace exist even here, in this rift.”

Detritus will see the light of day on May 14th through Paper Bag Records in North America and One Little Independent Records in the rest of the world and ahead of it Neufeld has shared the poignant and beautiful opening track, ‘Stories’. The single comes with a visual accompaniment made by Jeremy Mimnagh.