Australian singer-songwriter Grace Cummings has announced new album Ramona, out April 5th via ATO Records/PIAS. It’s the followup to her acclaimed breakthrough LP Storm Queen. New single “On and On” is once again a stunning, horizon-chasing pop song that echoes a tinge of Springsteen-indebted heartland balladry. Over its gleaming golden dawn backdrop, Cummings brandishes her staggering vocal range, from operatic to bluesy. “A song about either being stuck in a dream or trapped in the same world minute-to- minute, day-to-day… It’s hopeful and it makes me happy,” Cummings says.
Noted Cummings fan Angel Olsen, who isn’t a half bad vocalist herself, describes the sheer power of that voice as well as anyone: ““It felt like the wind of a hurricane entered the room. I remember feeling so activated and surprised by Grace’s vocal capacity that I actually felt my body brace itself against the wall.“
Ramona was recorded with one of Olsen’s former collaborators, Jonathan Wilson, and also features harpist Mary Lattimore – whose singular talents seem to be in insane demand these days – plus Drew Erickson, the man who arranged Weyes Blood’s And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow and Mitski’s The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We. Judging by personnel alone, Ramona feels like it’s going to be a slam dunk of a record. You can preorder Ramona here.
“A lot of the time the only way for me to process what’s happening in my life is to write about it,” Cummings says of her latest recording project. “So it’s a deeply personal record. But I hope that people come away from this album feeling like the songs were written just for them. Because they were, in a way. Watching the deeply personal evolve into something that’s shared by so many different people makes me feel less lonely in this world.”
Revisit our 2021 interview with Cummings here. For now, watch the video for “On And On” below and find it on streaming services.
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