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Photo Credit: Matt Gaillet
New Yep Roc signing Louisa Stancioff is set to release her stunning debut album When We Were Looking on April 12, 2024. The Maine-based artist has also shared the spare, haunting lead single “Gold” alongside a poignant, at times fantastical Matt Gaillet-directed video. “The song is a snapshot of a relationship's shift. ‘Gold’ narrates the feeling of someone claiming they are sorry, when you can tell that they don't really have the capacity to understand how you feel. I don't think of it as a complete end to a friendship - just a regrettable, but necessary shift when two people grow in different directions,” Stancioff explains, adding about the video, “It's a surreal take on shedding old skin and taking the intimidating step to becoming your most honest self.” When We Were Looking is now available for pre-order.
Stancioff will also head out on tour next month, beginning in Belfast, ME, on February 8th. She will be joined by Molly Parden and Eliza Edens for the majority of the shows; Stancioff’s run ends February 21st with a show at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere Zone One with Edens and Stello. A current itinerary is below and more dates will be announced soon.
“There are times in life when you’re so present, so fully immersed in the moment that you can catch a glimpse of another universe, of a realm beyond our own,” says Stancioff. “It might last for a second or an hour, it might come in the midst of bliss or sadness, you might be alone or with a lover, but when it happens, there’s nothing quite like it.” When We Were Looking is full of those moments. Written and recorded through a transitional, transient period filled with heartbreak and uncertainty, the collection is the raw and unflinching work of a nomadic soul who spent stints living in Alaska, California, New York, and North Carolina before returning home to her native Maine–one that holds nothing back in its bittersweet reckonings with pain, healing, acceptance, and growth. Stancioff writes with a cinematic eye, conjuring up richly detailed stagings for her emotionally-charged character studies sung with a silvery resonance.
The songs’ guitar-and-synth-focused arrangements are immersive and nuanced to match, thanks in part to the evocative sonic landscaping of producer/keyboardist Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Craig Finn), who proves to be an ideal creative foil on the record. Add it all up and you’ve got a dreamy, nostalgic, snapshot-filled album that blurs the lines between indie stoicism and folk sincerity–a lush, cathartic work that hints at everything from Phoebe Bridgers and Arlo Parks to Big Thief and Waxahatchee as it learns to find the beauty in grief and rebirth.
“I was pretty lost and confused when I was writing these songs,” Stancioff confesses. “The album was a way for me to process everything I was going through, a way to finally close the door and move on from some of the feelings that had been consuming me so intensely. It was a way to find a lot of beauty in those emotions. That’s why it’s called When We Were Looking–the idea of taking a pause to see what’s beautiful in front of you even when it’s dark, peeking into something bigger in those little moments.”
Read Louisa Stancioff’s full bio and download hi-res images/artwork HERE.
When We Were Looking cover artwork
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