To celebrate the 20th anniversary of her seminal eponymous debut studio album, Martha Wainwright announces the 20th Anniversary Tour, hitting North America in the Spring of 2025.
"20 years ago my life as an artist took shape when my first record was released. In many ways that record defined me, as well as launched me into a now over 20 year long career that has made me who I am. It was after 10 years of playing in bars, making cassettes and EPs to sell at my shows, singing backup for my brother Rufus, falling in love and out of love and in again, practicing, writing, singing until I could barely sing anymore, partying, walking for hours and hours, crying and laughing with friends, playing with musicians and listening to great artists working with my ex-husband in the studio for 2 years that created this first record.
Labels wouldn't sign me when I started and I had to craft, with the help of many people, an album that would finally be licensed and released in 2005. My first record tells my story and when it was finally released I was able to work and tour and have a career in music - something that I always wanted but wasn't sure would happen. 20 years later, with 6 other albums under my belt, 2 kids and a career that is chugging along, I can safely say that my first record paved my way forward and I'm very proud of it and still sing many of these early songs.
~~~
Martha Wainwright is beginning again.
The beguiling performer and songwriter returns with Love Will Be Reborn, out in August. Not since 2012's Come Home to Mama has a Martha Wainwright record been so full of original written material. Wainwright's fifth studio album follows recent years of loneliness and clarity in search of optimism and joy.
Wainwright wrote the first song--and what would become the title track-- of the record a few years ago. It was a very dark time, she says, but the positivity and luminosity of "Love Will Be Reborn" signalled what was to come. The song simply poured out of her.
Much of Wainwright's songwriting since 2016's Goodnight City felt too raw. "There were several years where I picked up the guitar, and I was so, so sad and depressing. I would just put it down because I was terrible." Before writing it out, or writing through it for catharsis, Wainwright had to live it. Album opener "Middle of the Lake" reinforces Wainwright's path forward as she sings over voltaic chords and percussion, "I sing my songs of love and pain / Winds of change or simply singing, I'm singing in the rain." Her work never shies away from an existential throbbing wound. "There are a couple major subjects on the record. From what I can tell, there's really dark and then light," she says," It really is reflective of a very difficult period of divorce. Then, after that, it's meeting somebody new and amazing. And so you hear certain songs about this new love."
Wainwright enlisted Canadian producer Pierre Marchand for Love Will Be Reborn. "Hole In My Heart" is an upbeat song, with Wainwright singing, "I got naked right away when I saw you / My love was like the rain when I saw you," as is the track, "Getting Older," which is about aging and new love. Other songs, she says, "represent me trying to shake away the past a little bit, the ball and chain of that anger, try to escape from it."
There is no song more gripping than "Report Card." The song is stripped to essential instrumentals punctuating her anguish. Wainwright expresses on the sombre track a feeling of deep loneliness, evoking emotional nuances particular to parents and individuals separated from their children because of custody arrangements.
Martha Wainwright's role as an artist has always been to embrace her wildness and sketch out her raw depth. This edge is what makes Wainwright uncompromisingly herself and continues to draw in an audience two decades on. To begin again does not mean starting over. This process of rebirth honours the past to move forward. Love Will Be Reborn captures Wainwright's heart in transition. In an effort to rise out of some painful depths, as she says much like a phoenix from the ashes of an existential twilight, Wainwright bore witness to what her heart endured to find a new joy once more.
~~~~~~~~~
With a hugely expressive voice and an arsenal of powerful songs, Martha is a beguiling entertainer and a refreshingly different, new force in music.
Martha is the daughter of folk legends Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle and sister of acclaimed singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright. Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, she spent her childhood immersed in music and often performing with her parents. She took the first step in her own recording career in 1998 when she contributed her song "Year of the Dragon" to her mother and aunt's album The McGarrigle Hour. The same year she started singing back-up for her brother both live and on record.
Undoubtedly her own person, with her own sense of style, Martha creates her own music with an extraordinary versatile and compelling voice.
Martha's third studio album, Come Home To Mama (2013), via Cooperative Music in the U.S. was her first collection of original music in four years and was produced by Yuka C. Honda of Cibo Matto. Come Home To Mama followed Martha Wainwright's live collection of Edith Piaf songs, Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, A Paris in 2009.
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"20 years ago my life as an artist took shape when my first record was released. In many ways that record defined me, as well as launched me into a now over 20 year long career that has made me who I am. It was after 10 years of playing in bars, making cassettes and EPs to sell at my shows, singing backup for my brother Rufus, falling in love and out of love and in again, practicing, writing, singing until I could barely sing anymore, partying, walking for hours and hours, crying and laughing with friends, playing with musicians and listening to great artists working with my ex-husband in the studio for 2 years that created this first record.
Labels wouldn't sign me when I started and I had to craft, with the help of many people, an album that would finally be licensed and released in 2005. My first record tells my story and when it was finally released I was able to work and tour and have a career in music - something that I always wanted but wasn't sure would happen. 20 years later, with 6 other albums under my belt, 2 kids and a career that is chugging along, I can safely say that my first record paved my way forward and I'm very proud of it and still sing many of these early songs.
~~~
Martha Wainwright is beginning again.
The beguiling performer and songwriter returns with Love Will Be Reborn, out in August. Not since 2012's Come Home to Mama has a Martha Wainwright record been so full of original written material. Wainwright's fifth studio album follows recent years of loneliness and clarity in search of optimism and joy.
Wainwright wrote the first song--and what would become the title track-- of the record a few years ago. It was a very dark time, she says, but the positivity and luminosity of "Love Will Be Reborn" signalled what was to come. The song simply poured out of her.
Much of Wainwright's songwriting since 2016's Goodnight City felt too raw. "There were several years where I picked up the guitar, and I was so, so sad and depressing. I would just put it down because I was terrible." Before writing it out, or writing through it for catharsis, Wainwright had to live it. Album opener "Middle of the Lake" reinforces Wainwright's path forward as she sings over voltaic chords and percussion, "I sing my songs of love and pain / Winds of change or simply singing, I'm singing in the rain." Her work never shies away from an existential throbbing wound. "There are a couple major subjects on the record. From what I can tell, there's really dark and then light," she says," It really is reflective of a very difficult period of divorce. Then, after that, it's meeting somebody new and amazing. And so you hear certain songs about this new love."
Wainwright enlisted Canadian producer Pierre Marchand for Love Will Be Reborn. "Hole In My Heart" is an upbeat song, with Wainwright singing, "I got naked right away when I saw you / My love was like the rain when I saw you," as is the track, "Getting Older," which is about aging and new love. Other songs, she says, "represent me trying to shake away the past a little bit, the ball and chain of that anger, try to escape from it."
There is no song more gripping than "Report Card." The song is stripped to essential instrumentals punctuating her anguish. Wainwright expresses on the sombre track a feeling of deep loneliness, evoking emotional nuances particular to parents and individuals separated from their children because of custody arrangements.
Martha Wainwright's role as an artist has always been to embrace her wildness and sketch out her raw depth. This edge is what makes Wainwright uncompromisingly herself and continues to draw in an audience two decades on. To begin again does not mean starting over. This process of rebirth honours the past to move forward. Love Will Be Reborn captures Wainwright's heart in transition. In an effort to rise out of some painful depths, as she says much like a phoenix from the ashes of an existential twilight, Wainwright bore witness to what her heart endured to find a new joy once more.
~~~~~~~~~
With a hugely expressive voice and an arsenal of powerful songs, Martha is a beguiling entertainer and a refreshingly different, new force in music.
Martha is the daughter of folk legends Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle and sister of acclaimed singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright. Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, she spent her childhood immersed in music and often performing with her parents. She took the first step in her own recording career in 1998 when she contributed her song "Year of the Dragon" to her mother and aunt's album The McGarrigle Hour. The same year she started singing back-up for her brother both live and on record.
Undoubtedly her own person, with her own sense of style, Martha creates her own music with an extraordinary versatile and compelling voice.
Martha's third studio album, Come Home To Mama (2013), via Cooperative Music in the U.S. was her first collection of original music in four years and was produced by Yuka C. Honda of Cibo Matto. Come Home To Mama followed Martha Wainwright's live collection of Edith Piaf songs, Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, A Paris in 2009.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of her seminal eponymous debut studio album, Martha Wainwright announces the 20th Anniversary Tour, hitting North America in the Spring of 2025.
"20 years ago my life as an artist took shape when my first record was released. In many ways that record defined me, as well as launched me into a now over 20 year long career that has made me who I am. It was after 10 years of playing in bars, making cassettes and EPs to sell at my shows, singing backup for my brother Rufus, falling in love and out of love and in again, practicing, writing, singing until I could barely sing anymore, partying, walking for hours and hours, crying and laughing with friends, playing with musicians and listening to great artists working with my ex-husband in the studio for 2 years that created this first record.
Labels wouldn't sign me when I started and I had to craft, with the help of many people, an album that would finally be licensed and released in 2005. My first record tells my story and when it was finally released I was able to work and tour and have a career in music - something that I always wanted but wasn't sure would happen. 20 years later, with 6 other albums under my belt, 2 kids and a career that is chugging along, I can safely say that my first record paved my way forward and I'm very proud of it and still sing many of these early songs.
~~~
Martha Wainwright is beginning again.
The beguiling performer and songwriter returns with Love Will Be Reborn, out in August. Not since 2012's Come Home to Mama has a Martha Wainwright record been so full of original written material. Wainwright's fifth studio album follows recent years of loneliness and clarity in search of optimism and joy.
Wainwright wrote the first song--and what would become the title track-- of the record a few years ago. It was a very dark time, she says, but the positivity and luminosity of "Love Will Be Reborn" signalled what was to come. The song simply poured out of her.
Much of Wainwright's songwriting since 2016's Goodnight City felt too raw. "There were several years where I picked up the guitar, and I was so, so sad and depressing. I would just put it down because I was terrible." Before writing it out, or writing through it for catharsis, Wainwright had to live it. Album opener "Middle of the Lake" reinforces Wainwright's path forward as she sings over voltaic chords and percussion, "I sing my songs of love and pain / Winds of change or simply singing, I'm singing in the rain." Her work never shies away from an existential throbbing wound. "There are a couple major subjects on the record. From what I can tell, there's really dark and then light," she says," It really is reflective of a very difficult period of divorce. Then, after that, it's meeting somebody new and amazing. And so you hear certain songs about this new love."
Wainwright enlisted Canadian producer Pierre Marchand for Love Will Be Reborn. "Hole In My Heart" is an upbeat song, with Wainwright singing, "I got naked right away when I saw you / My love was like the rain when I saw you," as is the track, "Getting Older," which is about aging and new love. Other songs, she says, "represent me trying to shake away the past a little bit, the ball and chain of that anger, try to escape from it."
There is no song more gripping than "Report Card." The song is stripped to essential instrumentals punctuating her anguish. Wainwright expresses on the sombre track a feeling of deep loneliness, evoking emotional nuances particular to parents and individuals separated from their children because of custody arrangements.
Martha Wainwright's role as an artist has always been to embrace her wildness and sketch out her raw depth. This edge is what makes Wainwright uncompromisingly herself and continues to draw in an audience two decades on. To begin again does not mean starting over. This process of rebirth honours the past to move forward. Love Will Be Reborn captures Wainwright's heart in transition. In an effort to rise out of some painful depths, as she says much like a phoenix from the ashes of an existential twilight, Wainwright bore witness to what her heart endured to find a new joy once more.
~~~~~~~~~
With a hugely expressive voice and an arsenal of powerful songs, Martha is a beguiling entertainer and a refreshingly different, new force in music.
Martha is the daughter of folk legends Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle and sister of acclaimed singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright. Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, she spent her childhood immersed in music and often performing with her parents. She took the first step in her own recording career in 1998 when she contributed her song "Year of the Dragon" to her mother and aunt's album The McGarrigle Hour. The same year she started singing back-up for her brother both live and on record.
Undoubtedly her own person, with her own sense of style, Martha creates her own music with an extraordinary versatile and compelling voice.
Martha's third studio album, Come Home To Mama (2013), via Cooperative Music in the U.S. was her first collection of original music in four years and was produced by Yuka C. Honda of Cibo Matto. Come Home To Mama followed Martha Wainwright's live collection of Edith Piaf songs, Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, A Paris in 2009.
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"20 years ago my life as an artist took shape when my first record was released. In many ways that record defined me, as well as launched me into a now over 20 year long career that has made me who I am. It was after 10 years of playing in bars, making cassettes and EPs to sell at my shows, singing backup for my brother Rufus, falling in love and out of love and in again, practicing, writing, singing until I could barely sing anymore, partying, walking for hours and hours, crying and laughing with friends, playing with musicians and listening to great artists working with my ex-husband in the studio for 2 years that created this first record.
Labels wouldn't sign me when I started and I had to craft, with the help of many people, an album that would finally be licensed and released in 2005. My first record tells my story and when it was finally released I was able to work and tour and have a career in music - something that I always wanted but wasn't sure would happen. 20 years later, with 6 other albums under my belt, 2 kids and a career that is chugging along, I can safely say that my first record paved my way forward and I'm very proud of it and still sing many of these early songs.
~~~
Martha Wainwright is beginning again.
The beguiling performer and songwriter returns with Love Will Be Reborn, out in August. Not since 2012's Come Home to Mama has a Martha Wainwright record been so full of original written material. Wainwright's fifth studio album follows recent years of loneliness and clarity in search of optimism and joy.
Wainwright wrote the first song--and what would become the title track-- of the record a few years ago. It was a very dark time, she says, but the positivity and luminosity of "Love Will Be Reborn" signalled what was to come. The song simply poured out of her.
Much of Wainwright's songwriting since 2016's Goodnight City felt too raw. "There were several years where I picked up the guitar, and I was so, so sad and depressing. I would just put it down because I was terrible." Before writing it out, or writing through it for catharsis, Wainwright had to live it. Album opener "Middle of the Lake" reinforces Wainwright's path forward as she sings over voltaic chords and percussion, "I sing my songs of love and pain / Winds of change or simply singing, I'm singing in the rain." Her work never shies away from an existential throbbing wound. "There are a couple major subjects on the record. From what I can tell, there's really dark and then light," she says," It really is reflective of a very difficult period of divorce. Then, after that, it's meeting somebody new and amazing. And so you hear certain songs about this new love."
Wainwright enlisted Canadian producer Pierre Marchand for Love Will Be Reborn. "Hole In My Heart" is an upbeat song, with Wainwright singing, "I got naked right away when I saw you / My love was like the rain when I saw you," as is the track, "Getting Older," which is about aging and new love. Other songs, she says, "represent me trying to shake away the past a little bit, the ball and chain of that anger, try to escape from it."
There is no song more gripping than "Report Card." The song is stripped to essential instrumentals punctuating her anguish. Wainwright expresses on the sombre track a feeling of deep loneliness, evoking emotional nuances particular to parents and individuals separated from their children because of custody arrangements.
Martha Wainwright's role as an artist has always been to embrace her wildness and sketch out her raw depth. This edge is what makes Wainwright uncompromisingly herself and continues to draw in an audience two decades on. To begin again does not mean starting over. This process of rebirth honours the past to move forward. Love Will Be Reborn captures Wainwright's heart in transition. In an effort to rise out of some painful depths, as she says much like a phoenix from the ashes of an existential twilight, Wainwright bore witness to what her heart endured to find a new joy once more.
~~~~~~~~~
With a hugely expressive voice and an arsenal of powerful songs, Martha is a beguiling entertainer and a refreshingly different, new force in music.
Martha is the daughter of folk legends Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle and sister of acclaimed singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright. Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, she spent her childhood immersed in music and often performing with her parents. She took the first step in her own recording career in 1998 when she contributed her song "Year of the Dragon" to her mother and aunt's album The McGarrigle Hour. The same year she started singing back-up for her brother both live and on record.
Undoubtedly her own person, with her own sense of style, Martha creates her own music with an extraordinary versatile and compelling voice.
Martha's third studio album, Come Home To Mama (2013), via Cooperative Music in the U.S. was her first collection of original music in four years and was produced by Yuka C. Honda of Cibo Matto. Come Home To Mama followed Martha Wainwright's live collection of Edith Piaf songs, Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, A Paris in 2009.
show less
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