Adia Victoria has announced the forthcoming release of her new album, A Southern Gothic. The LP is out September 17 via Canvasback Records. The record was executive produced by T Bone Burnett, and features guest contributions from Jason Isbell, Margo Price, and Matt Berninger.
With A Southern Gothic Adia continues her journey through the conflicts of the American South and the troubling resonance of its past. Sonically, the album is full of frequent juxtaposition. It is equal parts historical montage and modern prophesy, dark and light, love and loathing. The 14 tracks are the musical embodiment of the relationship that so many people, especially Black women, have with the South.
During the writing process, Adia listened to Alan Lomax’s old field recordings and the sounds became the heartbeat of her new music, upon which she and creative partner Mason Hickman later layered other parts. And in many ways, the story of working with Hickman to write and produce A Southern Gothic is as critical to the project as the stories Victoria tells across the album. Recording for A Southern Gothic began in Paris in 2019/early 2020, and it was while in France that Victoria discovered a sense of clarity about her home that she didn’t always have when she was writing from her home. “I would say that the philosophy behind this record is, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention,’” Victoria says. “It’s also, ‘When you don’t have excess, when that’s all stripped away, what you gon’ do with that?’ What art can you make from walking through your mother’s garden?”
A Southern Gothic tracklisting
Magnolia Blues
Mean-Hearted Woman
You Was Born To Die (ft. Kyshona Armstrong, Margo Price & Jason Isbell)
Whole World Knows
Troubled Mind
Far From Dixie
Please Come Down
My oh My (ft. Stone Jack Jones)
Deep Water Blues
Carolina Bound
South For The Winter (ft. Matt Berninger)
Photo by Huy Nguyen
