For those of a certain age (me), you may remember the first time Stars' Amy Millan released a solo album in 2006. Some of you (me) may have also played "Skinny Boy," "Headsfull," and "Baby I" on repeat on their college radio shows. Anyway... Good news! Canadian gem Millan, who also gained prominence via her periodic collabs with Broken Social Scene, is releasing her first solo album in 16 years, which just tickles my college self. I Went To Find You is out May 30 and features today's lead single and video, "Wire walks."
Described by Millan as "gentle songs for difficult times," I Went To Find You is co-written and produced by Jay McCarrol, engineered by Jace Lasek (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Wolf Parade), mixed by Peter Katis (the National, Interpol), and recorded at Lost River in Canada's Laurentian Forest. McCarrol, Lasek, and Millan's husband and Stars bandmate Evan Cranley also contribute instrumentals.
"A lot of this record had me looking into my past for clues on who I have become and why," says Millan of the album's title. "The ‘you’ of the title is the people I found, the people I went looking for after they’d gone -- and the ‘you' is the person you become when all these components align."
Millan opens up about the inspiration behind "Wire walks," which includes a Stars reference in the lyrics: "Getting older is a trip. You assume you’re gonna grow out of feeling like you might fall down a hole any minute, but for me the feeling continues to hover."
She continues: "I reference Stars’ ‘Ageless Beauty’ here with the lyric ‘I lied when I said that time would catch your head.’ I thought when I was younger time would mend all wounds, but I was wrong, it does not. Turns out they stick around! So what I have learned with my sage years is to stop trying to dodge and outrun the hard feelings. Embrace the difficult bits, the footprint that made me what I am. When outrunning isn’t working, I might need to lean into what I’ve always been."
Meanwhile, of the video, which is produced by AOK and made by Luca Tarantini and Jonah Armitageshe, Millan says: "I wanted to create a dreamscape, a world that doesn’t exist. Wires and ghosts that come alive. Crystal visions and whimsical characters that dance in melting corridors. Luca helped make that vintage vision come to life with new technologies and movements with the song itself."
TRACKLIST:
01 "Untethered"
02 "Wire walks"
03 "Borderline"
04 "Kiss that summer"
05 "Make way for waves"
06 "The overpass"
07 "Don valley"
08 "Murmurations"
09 "lost river diamonds"
I Went To Find You is out 5/30 via Last Gang Records. Pre-order it here.
