Juni Habel has released Pearl Cloud Song, a lush instrumental taken from her forthcoming album Evergreen In Your Mind, out 10th April on Basin Rock.
The track emerged from one of the Norwegian singer-songwriter’s characteristic explorations in open tunings — a discovery that let the song, as she puts it, tumble out on its own. Across four and a half unhurried minutes, steel-string guitar intertwines with Herman Wildhagen‘s pedal steel and the subtle interventions of co-producer Stian Skaaden, whose effects, bass and distant vocal traces bring the piece to life. Habel initially tried adding vocal melodies and words, but the song resisted. “I love how the title adds a little shimmer,” she says, “and the sensation of flying.”
Evergreen In Your Mind is Habel’s third album and her first in three years, following the breakthrough success of 2023’s Carvings. Its eleven songs were recorded in intimate, unconventional settings — corners of her home, the piano in the school where she works — with the physical world around her providing percussion. The album exists, by Habel’s own account, within a kind of dream: an imagined place where her desire for oneness with each other and the world is finally realised.
While Habel’s voice still plays an elegant lead role across the album, there are new shifts in emphasis. More attention was paid to the groove and feel of these songs, with playfulness and patience shaping the recording process. “We always aim to capture effortlessness,” Habel reveals, “but the way of getting there is anything but effortless.”
Habel will support Nadia Reid on a run of intimate UK dates in April: London’s St Matthias Church (24th April), Hallé at St Michael’s in Manchester (25th April), and Bristol Folk House (26th April) – Tickets here.
Evergreen In Your Mind is released April 10th via Basin Rock.
Pre-order: Bandcamp and Basin Rock website