The new album Sing to the Walls by Chastity Brown is due out June 17 via Red House Records. 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.
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.”
In the same way, her lyrics seek to reach across a great divide. “I will sing to those walls, hope it gets through / And I will sing to your scars, they need healing too,” Chastity sings on the album’s title track, a pandemic love song about breaking through the physical, emotional, and social barriers that have been constructed around all of us in recent years. By the next track, “Like the Sun,” she breaks through into a melody that rises like a wide-open prairie sunrise—a heart-rending moment that demonstrates her talent for expressing big, beautiful ideas in her music, and to create songs that radiate bliss.
I know that Prince left his mark on the world, but it feels quite distinct as a musician living in south Minneapolis. I wrote this as an ode to falling in love in this city. Prince is an ancestor now and so sometimes on certain jams I send a little prayer out and hope he digs it.
Chastity Brown
This singer/songwriter calls Minneapolis home. On her new album, the Black queer musician embraces modern soul and evolves her sound. The pandemic, riots in her hometown and racial reckoning provided the soil for a stunning work about love and choosing joy.
Brown is scheduled to do a Midwest swing of dates with the incomparable Valerie June this month. Beginning tomorrow, May 11, at The Magic Bag in Ferndale, Michigan, the tour will continue through Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa before Chastity heads to the UK and Netherlands in June.
Chastity Brown
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*Feature image photo credit: Brad Ogbonna
