New Indigo Girls? Yes! New Indigo Girls!

March 1, 2020 3:23 PM

Amy and Emily bring back the magic after 5 years with their new single Shit Kickin' [3m53s, unofficial lyrics]. Their new album will be out April 24th.

Indigo Girls Preview New Album ‘Look Long’ With Funky ‘Sh-t Kickin” -Rolling Stone

We had a house on a cove, in a rural area surrounded by farms, dirt roads, and woods. We had dirt bikes at the lake house in various states of functionality. We zoomed around the roads, both paved and dirt, without a care to any rules, and we discovered a series of trails in the woods that provided adventure and the much-needed privacy for childhood pondering and eventual teenage angst.

When I think back on the landscape and the folks I ran across, I think a lot about what was happening in society at the time, the social injustices that ran rampant, and how abstract it all seemed until I had the courage and freedom to question the ingredients of my environment.

'Psychedelic Heart?' Amy Ray of Indigo Girls talks new album coming in 2020 -AZ Central

We did it all in England," Ray says, "most of it at Real World, Peter Gabriel’s studio. So it’s produced. It’s got a lot going on. I mean, it’s not acoustic. It’s more the kind of records we do that are electric and groovy and vibey and have stuff happening. So it’s gonna be less of a roots record and more of like a John Reynolds production. There’s a couple of songs that are super acoustic that are very beautiful and simple, piano and guitar and kind of sparse drums. And then there’s stuff that’s just kind of crazy that Emily wrote that sounds like psychedelic Heart or something to me."

Ray laughs at the thought of Indigo Girls as psychedelic Heart, then adds, "It really runs the gamut. I did a couple songs that are more in my kind of garage/poppy-punk vein. And then I have a couple that are I guess more serious or something. They’re on mandolin, but they have drums and things going on everywhere and guitar."

posted by hippybear (14 comments total)

Bonus new material: Howl At The Moon, live, March 2019.
posted by hippybear at 3:29 PM on March 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

This slaps.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:00 PM on March 1, 2020

Woo hoo!! So excited!! 💃🏼🎶🥰
posted by pearlybob at 4:54 PM on March 1, 2020

I keep thinking I might be finally too cool for the Indigo Girls, but I have been singing both parts loudly since 1998 and they are still too cool for me.
posted by lauranesson at 5:27 PM on March 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

Fuck me. that first hit me in the gut, the put a hand at my back and held me up.

That song, by those two women, at this time in history, made me feel the way my favorite Tolkien quote makes me feel:

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns, in dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.

posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 6:35 PM on March 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm getting a 'This video is not available' message.
posted by bardophile at 7:00 PM on March 1, 2020

Possibly region-blocked. Apologies.
posted by hippybear at 7:10 PM on March 1, 2020

Sometimes doing searches for titles of region blocked videos links here can yield localized viewable videos of the same content.
posted by hippybear at 7:10 PM on March 1, 2020

I still remember fondly a little low-key concert Emily Saliers and her father gave at a church in Lancaster County more than a decade ago. There were maybe 100 people there. Half the audience was a bunch of people older than me who always attended the church's concerts, and they seemed bewildered yet pleased at the younger folks that showed up who were obvious Indigo Girls fans.

I don't remember any particular song that they played, but will never forget what a delightful pair of people they were.
posted by circleofconfusion at 7:34 AM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'll take it.
posted by allthinky at 11:46 AM on March 2, 2020

Also, I always like thinking of Tig Notaro and the Indigo Girls?
posted by lauranesson at 2:54 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

circleofconfusion--That must have been an amazing night! I've gotten to hear Don Saliers preach several times. He's a very in-demand preacher among progressive, music loving mainline Protestants. He often sings during his sermons. Don and Emily have also written a book together, which I adore.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:08 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

The background of having Don as a father and Emily being who she is today is part of the map that keeps bringing me back to IG. That and the ever-held hope that they'll perform Chickenman with a lengthy soliloquy by Amy. That shit was totally dope.

No, seriously, decades of having them around. It's shaped me, helped me shape myself, has given me hope and helped me work through deep hurts. (Once, in public, at an IG concert, resulting in a giant crowd hug of me while I sobbed. #Ghost) I don't have any other touchstone like them in my life -- a band I've grown with and who have fed me on such a soulful level, there is no other.

I'm excited for this new album. This new song is strong, and grew stronger on repeat listens. I see a concert is on the schedule I could go to, but it's not for sale yet, and it's on a Tuesday out of town, so.... um.... probably maybe?
posted by hippybear at 9:40 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

Tune in this Thursday (3/19) at 6:00pm EST on Facebook for the Indigo Girls live performance and Q&A session. (Via Rolling Stone's Indie Artists Turn to Livestreaming as Coronavirus Crisis Unfolds, updated March 16, 2020; h/t to mbrubeck in this AskMe thread)
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:51 PM on March 16, 2020 [2 favorites]