Today, singer-songwriter Caroline Spence releases her eagerly-anticipated fourth studio album True North. The follow-up to 2019’s critically acclaimed Mint Condition—hailed by Rolling Stone as a “gorgeous reflection on finding peace amid upheaval”— the twelve songs on True Northplumb the depths of grief, growth, and the endless complexities of human nature. The result is a tour de force that affirms Spence as a truly incomparable songwriter, reinforcing her profound capacity to pack so much insight into songs that illuminate and mesmerize.
Despite the myriad challenges of writing and recording an album during a global pandemic, Spence found the experience of collaborating with producer Jordan Lehning liberating. As she recalls, “For this album I wanted to have a genre-less experience—I was hearing the songs in a way that felt more colorful and cinematic than the usual treatment of live-band tracking with Americana instrumentation, so I wanted to work in a way where we weren’t trapped by that. There was a lot of play involved, a lot of painting all over the songs and adding new layers, and I loved the freedom of not knowing what we’d end up with.”
With its unfettered expression of pain and loss and longing and joy, True North ultimately achieves a level of openness that Spence views as a charmed responsibility—the very sense of unshakable purpose encapsulated in the album’s title. “I’m constantly realizing that my job is to get myself to that place where I’m able to put words to the things that sometimes feel impossible to talk about,” she says. “So even though this album is a little microcosm of my own experience, I know that other people will find themselves in these stories. For me, songwriting isn’t about being cool or even wise, it’s about—as Mary Oliver says—‘paying attention, being astonished, and telling about it.’ I don’t think I have the answers whatsoever, but I do think that my job is to look for them so that you don’t have to feel so overwhelmed by the questions.“
Caroline Spence will be on tour throughout 2022. A list of confirmed tour dates is below, and new dates (including rescheduled shows) will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tour Dates:
5/6 St. Louis, MO, Blueberry Hill
5/7 Berwyn, IL, Fitzgerald’s
5/8 St. Paul, MN, Turf Club
5/12 Decatur, AL, Singer Songwriter Series @ Princess Theatre
5/18 Tulsa, OK, Mercury Lounge
5/19 Fort Worth, TX, The Post at River East
5/20 Austin, TX, Saxon Pub
5/21 Eden, TX, Green Apple Arts Center
5/22 The Woodlands, TX, Dosey Doe
5/27 Decatur, GA, Eddie’s Attic
6/10 Stockholm, Sweden Sthlm Americana
6/11 Copenhagen, Denmark Ideal Bar (Vega)
6/12 Oslo, Norway Oslo Americana
6/17 Tunbridge Wells, United Kingdom Black Deer Festival
6/25 Blind Tiger, Greensboro, NC*
6/26 Washington, D.C., 9:30 Club*
6/27 Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA*
6/28 Brooklyn, NY, Brooklyn Made*
6/30 The Sinclair, Cambridge, MA*
7/01 Richmond, VA, The National*
7/2 Mercury Ballroom, Louisville, KY*
8/12 Outlandia 2022, Bellevue, NE
8/24 Smith Center for the Arts, Geneva, NY%
9/4 Caveman Music Festival, Weston, CO
9/13 AmericanaFest 2022, Nashville, TN
9/30 Sisters Folk Festival 2022, Sisters, OR
*w/ American Aquarium
%w/ Mary Chapin Carpenter
