Women’s Power is the stunning new single from by Italian artist Adele H, taken from her forthcoming album Impermanence. The album is Adele’s second full-length album, to be released on Vinyl and Digital Platforms via Ramble Records/Obsolete Recordings on September 15th.
Musician, producer and founder of Obsolete Recordings, Buck Curran, provided an insight into the unique sound they achieved on the recording:
Taking cues from records made by Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, and Cat Power….and a heavy influence from the early 70s live Neil Young recordings, we chose to record Women’s Power (and the entire album Impermanence) in a classical way, Adele playing the piano and singing simultaneously, all the way through in one take. It was really just a matter of setting the mic in a good way to capture both. Women’s Power and the piano instrumental Francesco Touches the Night were recorded with one mic, but later we put up an extra mic behind Adele to capture more of the piano and room sound.
In a sense, Women’s Power is a field recording made in our living room. We hoped to create an atmosphere similar to the records we love from the 60s and 70s.
Buck also filmed the video:
The video was mostly filmed in Northern Italy in Lombardia next to the Adda River. The Adda is a tributary of the Po…coming from the Alps near the border with Switzerland and flowing through to Lake Como. Leonardo da Vinci drew a lot of inspiration from the Adda (and its surrounding landscapes) for his engineering designs and artwork while staying in the region between 1483 and 1498.
There is a trail and natural area next to the Adda where me, Adele, our children and friends have spent a lot of time over the past six years, so I had the idea to make a large portion of the video there. I chose the opening historical footage from 1918 of the Red Baron boarding his Tri-plane and flying off into the white oblivion of the sky because the First World War represents the greatest war in contemporary times when there was a general mindset of innocence and naive honour, in the beginning, among most of the people who went to fight. Of course, everyone involved thought the war would be over quickly and would very soon learn the real horrors of war, as months turned to years and the war settled into a stalemate bogged down in trench warfare on its Western Front. Our son and his friend can be seen playing together on the trail near the river, and there are a variety of scenes of Adele that I filmed last Summer (including a moment of her playing piano at home filmed through the prism of an antique crystal).
Women’s Power is a powerful, intimate, yet universal song. Adele says it’s about the reality that Women (historically and now) bear and lovingly raise children who eventually come of age only to subsequently be used, with complete disregard, as cannon fodder (like pawns in a game of chess) by generals and politicians who don’t care about the lives, families, or communities they destroy.
Adele was inspired and compelled to write this song through her own experience of being the mother of our two children and Living with the fear from this reality.
Throughout ‘Women’s Power’, there is an undeniable moving emotional force that’s also strongly conveyed through the personal nature of the accompanying video. The real force of the song is ultimately carried by Adele’s exquisite vocals, which have been beautifully captured and recorded here; their warmth and clarity make an instant impact – a potent first offering from her forthcoming album.
The single will be available on all digital platforms on May 19th. Pre-order via Bandcamp here.