Aisha Burns’ solo debut Life In The Midwater came out way back in 2013. Since then, she’s still been around, playing on the 2016 album Pearls To Swine from the cult-beloved singer Adam Torres. That album had a capability to make Americana, and the frontier it depicts, feel ethereal and mysterious once more — partially due to Torres’ unusual voice, but also, crucially, due to the violin work contributed by Burns.

Though she may call Beverly, MA home now, Burns was born and raised in San Antonio, TX. And her music has that same expansive quality, like she’s bottling up ghosts she found twisting through the air in the desert. Her sophomore outing Argonauta is finally around the corner, and it promises to bring the same scope. It boasts a voluminous sound big enough for Burns to grapple with a particularly strange time in her life in which loss and new chapters mingled, as she embarked on an unexpected and pivotal relationship right around the same time that her mother passed away.

We’d previously heard “Must Be A Way,” and now Burns has shared another single called “We Were Worn.” Here’s what she had to say about the song:

This track was inspired both by what felt like an encounter with a ghost and the difficult choice of whether to embrace or detest the rise of memories of a person who has passed on. By the end of the song, I ultimately find solace in knowing that they haven’t fully left me: I am made so thoroughly from the biological elements of my mother. My whole body, my bones, my blood are all evidence of her.

“We Were Worn” is Argonauta’s opener and it rises dramatically. At first, it’s almost only Burns’ plaintive vocal and guitar, before drums crash in and her backing vocals haunt the edges of the composition. It has the same elusive yet emotive quality as her other work, and fittingly sounds like a conjuring and an exorcism all at once. Check it out below.

TOUR DATES:

05/16 – Austin, TX @ Barracuda
05/25 – Beverly, MA @ Mingo Gallery
06/09 – San Antonio, TX @ Lowcountry
06/30 – Norwich, CT @ Rose Arts Festival
07/10 – Boston, MA @ Atwood’s Tavern
08/08 – Allston, MA @ Aeronaut Brewery

Argonauta is out 5/25 via Western Vinyl. Pre-order it here.