Land of Talk, the Montreal-based band led by Elizabeth Powell, today announced a new album titled Indistinct Conversations will be released on May 15, 2020, via Dine Alone Records. The album’s first single “Weight of That Weekend,” out now, finds Powell delivering a soulful, impassioned plea over an expansive musical terrain. Indistinct Conversations is now available for pre-order.
Says Powell of the new single, “‘Weight of That Weekend’ is a recognition of having been on the receiving end of a lifetime of sexual coercion, assault, boundary violations, and subsequent gaslighting. It all just came to light after an especially heavy weekend a few summers back,” explains Powell. “I was so sick of carrying all this weight that wasn’t mine to bear. So sick of being owned by all of this. Imposed on me mostly by men. I grew so sick of suffering and being slowed-down by this weight. The song is a prayer for a lightness of being. A prayer for capital ‘L’ Love.”
Land of Talk has also announced spring North American tour dates, beginning with a hometown Montreal show on May 16, a show at Toronto’s Mod Club, May 23 and Vancouver’s Imperial on June 5. See below for a full tour routing.
All 11 songs on Indistinct Conversations were written by Powell (vocals/guitar/keys), and share the hallmarks of the Land of Talk sound: her silvery vocals; masterful, at times cacophonous guitar playing; and a stream-of-conscious lyricism—here perhaps at her most emotionally vulnerable and honest. Powell produced and arranged the tracks together with her bandmates Mark “Bucky” Wheaton (drums/keys) and Christopher McCarron (bass), and the trio recorded the album in a studio built by McCarron in Wheaton’s apartment basement.
Indistinct Conversations follows 2017’s acclaimed Life After Youth—at the time Land of Talk’s first album in seven years. The release saw praise from Pitchfork, Paste, The AV Club, NPR Music, Exclaim!, NOW, The Globe and Mail, among others, with its singles earning additional highlights from The FADER, NPR Music’s All Songs Considered, New York Magazine’s Vulture, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Bandcamp, WXPN, and more.
Read an essay on Land of Talk and Indistinct Conversations by Canadian novelist and poet Heather O’Neill HERE.
Vandala Magazine 