LAURA VEIRS

Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea Tuesday, October 5 wedgewood-rooms.co.uk

American folk singer-songwriter Laura Veirs will be coming to Portsmouth this autumn, touring her 11th album My Echo, which was released to across-the-board acclaim last October. Talking about My Echo, which was recorded in autumn 2019, Laura says: ‘It’s my “my songs knew I was getting divorced before I did” album. ‘My conscious mind was trying as hard as I could to keep my family together but my subconscious mind was working on the difficult struggles in my marital life. ‘I was part of a “Secret Poetry Group” that met and wrote poems monthly for a year during the writing of this record. ‘ Many of my poems turned into songs for this album. ‘By the time the album was being mixed last fall, my ex-husband/ producer Tucker Martine and I had decided to go our separate ways.

‘We were a great musical team for many years but we struggled to be compatible in our marriage and family life and that struggle is reflected in this album. ‘In this new batch of songs I imagine escaping from some sort of prison or cage. ‘ Advancing age, the confines of domesticity, our ppressive government nd the threat of the pocalypse permeate ese songs. s an album about integration. It reveals my st’s intuition at work. ‘Although these songs were written before quarantine they are strangely relevant to times in which we find ourselves currently. ‘ You will find me staring at the walls (Turquoise Walls). ‘You will find me feeling grateful to be alive (Memaloose Island). ‘ You will find me accepting the ephemeral nature of life (Vapor Trails and All the Things). You will find me searching for personal freedom while feeling trapped (Freedom Feeling). ‘ You will find me trying to accept that sometimes the best thing to do is to sit still and do nothing at all (Another Space and Time).’