More about: Courtney Marie Andrews

Having returned to the UK last year to treat audiences to performances from her Grammy-nominated album Old Flowers, Phoenix songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews has wasted no time coming up with Loose Future, a characteristically confident follow-up. Andrews’ journey has been remarkable, from a teenage stint backing up fellow Arizonans Jimmy Eat World as a harmonist, to tending bars in Belgium as she forged her solo career, to receiving the nomination for Best Americana Album at the 2021 Grammy Awards.

Throughout it all her superb vocal has anchored her songs: a signature vibrato paired with a classic country twang setting her apart from the pack. Sonically, Loose Future nestles between May Your Kindness Remain (2018) and Old Flowers (2020); the arrangements are layered with plenty of classic Americana instrumentation, but the recordings are intimate, as if we’re being invited into a front-room jam session with Andrews and her band.

Cosy as the recording technique is, Andrews is in a relatively playful mood, adding some analogue vocal effects and playing with old school synthesisers alongside the retro timbre of mandolin and pedal steel. Lead single ‘Satellite’ makes the most of this combo, the rattle of brushes on drum skins foregrounding reverberating guitar swells, led by a simple but direct melody. Having diligently carved out her niche and made her name, Courtney Marie Andrews sounds right at home. 

Loose Future arrives 7 October via Fat Possum Records.

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More about: Courtney Marie Andrews