Four years after the release of her last album, BC singer-songwriter Lauren Mann is back with a new studio album, Memory & Desire, out on October 16th. The first single ‘Missing You’ is out today on all digital platforms, following the exclusive premiere of the video on Aesthetic Magazine. Watch the video here.
Memory & Desire is Lauren Mann’s fourth album, and decisively her most honest and vulnerable, chronicling the years following her last release, Dearestly, with the ending of a marriage, the rediscovery of self, and the exploration of love, community, and meaning. All of this comes through on the first single ‘Missing You’, a song of longing that Lauren wrote in the midst of a Canadian tour.
“‘Missing You’ was written while I was on tour across Canada among the changing landscapes and shift from winter to spring,” says Lauren. “It captures the excitement and uncertainty of new love, and the bittersweet feeling of longing for someone while being out on the road.”
While Dearestly brought bombastic crescendos and grand production, Memory & Desire reveals a maturity in the evolution of Lauren’s songwriting and musicality. Influenced by the tapestry of music on the Gulf Islands where she has put down her roots for the last five years, Lauren has stayed true to her alt-pop sensibilities while exploring jazzy vocal riffs and bluesy guitar lines. Her oft typecast ukulele has been replaced with a tenor guitar, shifting her sound to something reminiscent of Beth Orton or Carole King.
Recorded at Lauren’s home in the Gulf Islands, Memory & Desire is an intimate marker of the passage of time, holding space between who she was and who she will be. Aided by producer and long-time collaborator Josh Rob Gwilliam, Memory & Desire holds the listener in tension, exploring themes of forgiveness, communication, anxiety, and uncertainty in both the ending and the beginning of relationships, with whispers of hope, light, and a deep graceful innocence woven through each song.
Lauren Mann’s new single ‘Missing You’ is available now on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, and other digital retailers and streaming services worldwide. For more information, please visit: laurenmannmusic.com
