Amber Arcades releases new album ‘Barefoot On Diamond Road’ on 10th February 2023. Ahead of it’s release Annelotte will be touring the UK with Swedish pop group Hater and Thala as part of a special Fire Records and Indie Venue Week showcase beginning 30th January. To celebrate today sees the release of new single ‘True Love’.
Stand-out track, ‘True Love’ breezes in with an uneven rhythm, the main vocal offset by spoken prose and soulful angst.
“The song is loosely about a weekend trip I took with my partner when we had been dating for a couple of months. That weekend everything just clicked for me and I think I fully realized then that I wanted to go for this person. That realization is so wonderful and scary at the same time! We put so much pressure on ourselves with regards to romantic love and all our wants and needs that we want it to fulfill. I also strongly realized that weekend though that the things I value in a relationship have changed through the years, what’s important is more clear and things are simpler now in that way” Annelotte de Graaf
Amber Arcades is the alias of Annelotte de Graaf, the Dutch singer/songwriter who recorded two EPs and a couple of critically-acclaimed albums, the second of which, ‘European Heartbreak’ blossomed with “hints of Lindi Ortega and early Saint Etienne, breezy, dreamy pop more personal than political” The Guardian.
Most recently, having moved to Amsterdam from Utrecht she sought a new way of looking at the world. She lost faith in music, then regained it and now delivers her most breath-taking album yet; ‘Barefoot On Diamond Road’.
Conceived remotely with original sparring partner Ben Greenberg (Danny Elfman, Depeche, Ryley Walker) in New York and Annelotte in Amsterdam; It’s a coming of age set in a new town with a new positivity underpinning her, as ever, beautifully crafted and highly personal observations on life, love and how it all should or could work.
“This record really reveals parts of me and my relationship with being a musician and making music. It’s like a reckoning, more in the moment, realizing how important it is to do things for the right reasons and how that can change your process into one that embraces what exists, including yourself.”
Immersed in an all-consuming wall of sound, ‘Barefoot On Diamond Road’ is like My Bloody Valentine gone acoustic, it shouldn’t work but it does; it’s a juxtaposition of textures, from skittery, uneasy dancefloor beats to symphonic kosmische, a baroque pop tapestry side-stitched with cellos and harps with a plaintive steel guitar echoing in the distance. Throughout, the drums and percussion arrangements of Matt Chamberlain (Pearl Jam, Bowie, Dylan, Adele, Lorde, Springsteen, Cohen…) make it glow with added texture. It’s a record of engaging maturity, filled with slow motion builds and epic lifts that elevate it to dizzying heights with all of the drama – think The Gun Club sitting back with Portishead, anything could happen, it’s an imaginary film… PJ Harvey lurks in the shadows.
Amber Arcades’ new album ‘Barefoot On Diamond Road’ marks a new phase for the highly respected musician.
Available on Limited Edition Silver Vinyl, Black Vinyl & CD
