Chastity Brown - Sing To The Walls [CD]

As the daughter of a blues musician, Chastity Brown was born with an innate ability to channel complex circumstances into beautiful, uplifting songs. But after surviving the isolation of the early pandemic and witnessing the global racial reckoning that manifested itself in the riots mere blocks from her South Minneapolis home, even she is surprised to hear the way her new album Sing To The Walls turned out. "It's a love album, in a way I didn't plan on," Chastity says. Like so many artists who endured the uncertainty of the 2020 lockdown, Chastity's instinct was to turn inward, at first out of self-preservation, and then because the new songs kept coming and coming. Since finishing her last album, 2017's Silhouette Of Sirens, she estimates she's written nearly 100 new songs, 10 of which found their way onto Sing To The Walls. These songs unfold with Chastity's expressive voice and expansive melodies, leading the listener through intertwining tendrils of atmospheric sounds. Even the titles hint at the album's sense of optimistic yearning, from the dreamy opening track "Wonderment," to her ode to healing a broken heart post-breakup "Curiosity," to the pulsing promise of "Hope. " With the exception of "Golden," a searing indictment of white complacency and a cathartic release of post-uprising rage that comes halfway through the album (and was released in an earlier form in mid-2020), Sing To The Walls is ultimately an album about hope, connection, and love; an ode to the sweetness of life, even amidst a pandemic, even in a city that's experienced so much pain. The album was started in Stockholm, Sweden with revered session drummer and producer Brady Blade, with the rest completed at Chastity's own home studio with her longtime drummer Greg Schutte. Additional production and mixing was done by Chris Bell in Austin, Texas. Sing To The Walls is a sonically expansive album; it mines the roots of Americana, folk, and soul music, but Chastity's stories are delivered in a style that feels remarkably timely, modern, and forward-thinking. "I celebrate the emotional richness in the tradition, but in my music I've committed myself to moving forward and reflecting the experiences of those overlooked by tradition. " Chastity Brown has been praised by NPR, CMT, American Songwriter, the London Times, Paste Magazine, and The Independent, among many others, and appeared on the U. K. 's Later... with Jools Holland. She tours nationally and internationally, having shared the stage and supported artists such as the Indigo Girls, Ani Di Franco, Andrea Gibson, Jayhawks, The National, and Micheal Kiwanuka.