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Norah Jones. �Frank Ockenfels 3/EMI.
Award-winning recording artist Norah Jones has set a May 1 release date for Little Broken Hearts, her new album produced by Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton).
She has also revealed the album cover and tracklisting of the 12-song collection, which features original tracks co-written by Jones and Burton.
The singer drew the inspiration for the album cover from the vintage movie posters that adorn Burton’s Los Angeles studio.
“Brian has this great collection of Russ Meyer posters in his studio,” explains Jones, “and this particular one, called Mudhoney, was right over the couch where I sat every day.
“I always was looking at it and thinking ‘that’s so cool I want to look like her’. I remember staring at the poster the whole time we made the record. It’s a great visual.”
Little Broken Hearts is the next step in the artistic evolution of one of the world’s most consistently intriguing singer-songwriters.
Jones first emerged on the world stage 10 years ago with the February 2002 release of Come Away With Me, her self-described “moody little record”.
It introduced a singular new voice and grew into a global phenomenon, sweeping the 2003 Grammy Awards and signalling a paradigm shift away from the prevailing synthetic pop music of the time.
Come Away With Me has just become the No 10 best-selling album of the Soundscan era. The album has sold 25 million copies worldwide.
Since then, Jones has released three more critically acclaimed and commercially successful solo albums – Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007) and The Fall (2009) – as well as two albums with her country collective The Little Willies.
Versatile
The 2010 compilation, … Featuring Norah Jones, showed her to possess a versatile voice by collecting her collaborations with artists as diverse as Willie Nelson, Outkast, Herbie Hancock and Foo Fighters.
Jones previously collaborated with Danger Mouse on his acclaimed 2011 album Rome, a valentine to classic Italian film score music that also featured Jack White.
Jones will tour extensively this year, performing at a mixture of festivals, amphitheatres and theatres in the US and abroad.
Select summer European dates, including a pair of sold-out London shows at the Royal Festival Hall, are already posted at www.norahjones.com, with more to be announced in the coming weeks.
US tour dates will be revealed shortly, but in the immediate future Jones will be performing at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
The track listing for Little Broken Hearts is as follows: Good Morning, Say Goodbye, Little Broken Hearts, She’s 22. Take It Back, After the Fall, 4 Broken Hearts, Travellin’ On, Out On The Road, Happy Pills, Miriam and All a Dream.
Jones has released Happy Pills as the lead single. It is a buoyant parade of sunny hooks that has met with an enthusiastic response from both fans and critics alike.
In other news on the recording front, last year’s winner of M-Net’s Idols, Dave van Vuuren, has embarked on a countrywide tour to promote his debut album.
The collection is titled Free the Animals and, from the thundering opener, You Will Leave a Mark, with its powerhouse drumming, driving bass line and slashing guitars, it is clear the Idols season seven winner is no simple pop idol.
If anything he is an edgy, intensely passionate and unique singer who is equally at home with muscular alternative rock songs and gentle introspective folk tunes.
His debut album has been released by Universal Music, and is the result of a five-week, non stop stint in Good Noise Studios, working with the Sama Award-winning pair of producer Brian O’Shea and engineer-programmer Crighton Goodwill, as well as executive producer Benjy Mudie (the team behind the success of Elvis Blue and The Soap Girls).
In addition to his hit single Hall of Mirrors, the album includes standouts such as the quirky, strings-driven Utopia (Find Me), the infectiously swinging Lovers Fight Til the End, the atmospheric Killing the Innocence and the anthemic Amazing.
The album is boosted by the inclusion of a brace of original songs including Troublesome Mind, If We Don’t Fear and an impressive updated rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia.
