It’s been seven years since the last proper album from California musician Tara Jane O’Neil, though she’s kept busy with collaborations and side projects since then. Today, she’s announcing a new full-length called The Cool Cloud Of Okayness — it’s out at the end of April, and it includes contributions from Alvvays drummer Sheridan Riley, Walt McClements, Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy, and more. O’Neil is introducing the album with the arresting lead single “Curling.”

“‘Curling’ began as a bass figure, discovered on one of many afternoons in a desert studio inside the first year of the pandemic,” O’Neill shared, continuing:

Jmy Kidd and I spent the time there keeping our public practices of dance and music going but in private chambers of improvised realities. Most of the music on The Cool Cloud Of Okayness started in this way and then found fuller shape with time, intention, and Sheridan Riley on drums and Walt McClements on his effected accordion. Like mantra, propulsion, persuasion, ‘Curling’ is a repetitive drone piece, rendered as a lively jam.

Lyrically this became a portrait of a shapeshifter- transforming, transfiguring, evolving and surviving. With an eye toward the queer kids coming up in my hometown during this era of legislative oppression against inclusion, expression, and safety.

To quote another song from the record, ‘joy is a form of fight, We bright’

One step more, forward

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Cool Cloud Of Okayness”
02 “Seeing Glass”
03 “Two Stones”
04 “We Bright”
05 “A Dash”
06 “Glass Island”
07 “Curling”
08 “Fresh End”
09 “Kaichan Kitchen”

TOUR DATES:
04/12 Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon (w/ Thalia Zedek)
04/24 Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool (w/ People Magazine)
04/27 Joshua Tree, CA @ The Firehouse (w/ Itasca)
05/06 Ojai, CA @ Kim Maxwell Studio (w/ Setting)
05/09 Chicago, IL @ Constellation (w/ Duffy x Uhlmann)
05/11 Louisville, KY @ B-Side (w/ Duffy x Uhlmann & Walford-Brown)

The Cool Cloud Of Okayness is out 4/25 via Orindal Records. Pre-order it here.