Vinyl LP

Sarah Harmer's first new album in a decade, to be released on February 21, 2020.

Multi-award-winning, platinum-selling singer-songwriter and environmental activist Sarah Harmer will release ‘Are You Gone,’ her first album in a decade, on February 21st, 2020 (Arts & Crafts). A deeply personal and political collection of songs motivated by the beauty of life, the urgency of the climate crisis, and the question of loss, Sarah called the album a spiritual successor of sorts to her acclaimed 2000 debut, ‘You Were Here,’ which made many year-end critics’ lists, and which TIME called the year’s best debut album. With its simple title, ‘Are You Gone,’ is a meditation on the idea of presence, a sharpened, more electric confrontation with the realities of nature and human nature.

The result of an unshakeable inclination to make music in conflict with a lifestyle more attuned to privacy, quiet, and activism, Sarah wrote ‘Are You Gone’ gradually over the last decade as she traded music for grassroots organizing as her “day job.” Between co-founding the citizen’s organization PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land) and leading the coalition’s successful efforts to prevent a quarry from being built on the Niagara Escarpment, she became a fixture in local politics and advocacy, while keeping her musical chops up by writing and playing casually with friends. Finally, in 2019, while pondering the “ghosts” of loss, capitalism’s gluttony and music’s potential as a public platform, Sarah finished recording ‘Are You Gone,’ her most sophisticated record to date.

Encompassing a stylistic range from barebones folk to layered indie rock, lead track “New Low” captures the prescient energy of the album – a rollicking, empowering electric guitar-laced call-for-uprising in the face of global disasters. Album opener “St. Peter’s Bay” blends melancholic vocals and smooth atmospherics to effectively conjure the feeling and image of standing at dusk overlooking an endless sea, while “Take Me Out” is a modern, punchy alt-rock take on the near impossibility of letting go. “What I Was to You” is a tribute to her lifelong friend Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip, and psychedelic-tinged piano ballad “The Lookout” tackles the angst of love-across-timezones. Penultimate track “Shoemaker,” about Sarah discovering an old book and census of her great great Glaswegian grandfather, calls to mind the gently ominous, slowly shifting chords of Sparklehorse before transforming into a gorgeous, almost-crescendoing show of Sarah’s vocal range. “See Her Wave” wraps the album with an acoustic goodbye written in memoriam to another friend who moved on.

1. St. Peter's Bay
2. New Low
3. Just Get Here
4. Take Me Out
5. Squeaking Voices
6. What I Was To You
7. The Lookout
8. Wildlife
9. Cowbirds
10. Little Frogs
11. Shoemaker
12. See Her Wave