James Yorkston Featuring Nina Persson & The Second Hand Orchestra
The Great White Sea Eagle
Domino
Released 01/13/23
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Arguably one of the most prolific singer-songwriters of the 21st century thus far owing to his impressive volume of recorded output over the past twenty-plus years, James Yorkston has returned with his absorbing new album The Great White Sea Eagle. Featuring The Cardigans’ Nina Persson and her fellow Swedes The Second Hand Orchestra, the twelve-track LP finds Yorkston in top lyrical form, weaving plaintive yet evocative narratives that remain with you long after the needle is lifted from the record.
“I always get embarrassed when I say this in interviews, but I loved one of (Nina’s) albums when I was younger,” Yorkston confides to The Scotsman. “Pre-internet, me and my friends used to swap cassettes and one of them was a Cardigans album called Life. I thought we should ask Nina because I felt I had some connection with her... We both wear woolly hats.”
“These guys are way more used to improvising than I am,” Persson says of her collaborators. “But I was totally trusting with the whole atmosphere because this group of people are amazing. Even if they have a great idea, they don’t just bombard it in. They’re very sensitive to what kind of instrumentation would lend itself to the song in question and also what it needs. I wouldn’t say necessarily less is more because there are times when everybody is absolutely blasting but there’s a beautiful choreography going on there with people stepping aside as much as they are stepping in.”
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