Corinne Bailey Rae has laid out plans for her new cross-discipline ‘Black Rainbows’ project.
The songwriter recently played a sold out London show, and included a number of fresh ideas in her performance. It’s all leading to a bold new project, with ‘Black Rainbows’ set to be released in full next year.
The roots of ‘Black Rainbows’ run deep. During the American tour for her last album ‘The Heart Speaks In Whispers’ back in 2016, she visited the Stony Island Arts Bank and was struck by the experience – the feeling lingered, and caused her to question and advance her own creativity.
As she explains…
“I saw scores for songs written during slavery times, thousands of Black books in a double height library, a Nick Cave Sound Suit just hanging on the wall, postcards, glass slides, ceramic objects, African masks and everything was so tactile; wood, glass, marble, stone, ceramic, leather. The objects were talking to me. While I was on my tour bus driving through America all I could think about was that space, I had to get back.”
‘Black Rainbows’ advances from this experience – songwriting, videos, performances, and more, it all links together in the same expertly curated manner as Stony Island Arts Bank. “Engaging with these archives and encountering Theaster Gates and his practice has changed how I think about myself as an artist and what the possibilities of my work can be,” she explains.
The project will be released as a full studio album in 2023 through leading American independent Thirty Tigers.
Photo Credit: Koto Bolofo
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