Evergreen In Your Mind/180g Vinyl

Description

« Fans of Nick Drake, Karen Dalton, and Neil Young will find much to appreciate in this musical equivalent of an evening spent alone by the fire. » The Times The Guardian wrote about the single in its Best New Tracks. « Sharing the same twilight light as Jessica Pratt's records, the Norwegian singer traces the gap between reality and memory in wrapped vocal harmonies, leading to a reassuring acoustic guitar motif. » Evergreen In Your Mind, the new and third album by Norwegian singer-songwriter Juni Habel, cohabits two worlds at once. The songs were recorded in quiet corners of her home, at the school piano where she works, and she uses the physical world around her to provide percussion. It also unfolds, as she herself testifies, in a dream; an imaginary place where her desire for unity between us and with the world around us finally comes true. Evergreen In Your Mind was recorded with co-producer Stian Skaaden, it is Habel's first album in three years, following the meteoric success of the album Carvings released in 2023. Composed of eleven new recordings, the songs here remain delicate, Habel's voice playing an elegant lead role – but there are also fluctuations. These small changes in Habel's sound lead to a notable advancement. There is more emphasis on the groove of these songs. Lightness has been embraced and, perhaps most importantly, patience has played a fundamental role in building the album with time and care given to every element of these songs. « We are always trying to capture ease – but the way to achieve it is anything but effortless, » reveals Habel. This extra time devoted to the project allowed Juni to nurture her creativity. She read and listened to music, ventured into the hills, placed herself in nature, and sought calm. Not as a deviation from her work, but as a fundamental part of the process. It is a search for connection, and it is a recurring theme in Evergreen In Your Mind; the polarity between stillness and passion, as well as our resistance to these desires, and the things we want to live and experience. The title track and the album's first single reflect this narrative. A beautiful and delicate folk song, it finds Habel in the woods, hidden from real life, caught in the space between the natural world and the allure of modernity. « It’s nostalgic. It’s about looking back and realizing that things will be different, » says Habel. « It’s about visualizing something beautiful in your head that you keep holding onto. » The cover of the album Evergreen In Your Mind also adds some sparkle. Striking photograph of Juni among the mountains, taken during a day trip to Rondane, a five-hour round trip from her home, explains Habel. « It was impressive to climb up to the high mountains, with its vast plains and intense colors. For an album whose music sometimes likes to hide, I think it matched perfectly with such an epic, grand, and powerful landscape. »