Blondshell (Sabrina Teitelbaum) is set to release her eagerly awaited sophomore album, ‘If You Asked For a Picture’, this Friday 2nd May via Partisan Records and has now shared the final pre-release track, “Event of a Fire”.
It’s Blondshell at her most cinematic, both sonically and emotionally, offering a slow-burning epic that starts in a hush and ends in a howl. Written in the haze of tour-life burnout and sparked by a real 4 a.m. hotel fire evacuation outside Boston, the song begins with a lone guitar arpeggio, intimate and unguarded, before piercing vocal harmonies flicker in and the whole thing ignites.
“It’s not really ‘what if I’m burnt out from touring,’” Teitelbaum says. “It’s like, ‘what if I’m burnt out from just existing?’”That existential fatigue builds into one of the most anthemic moments on the album, all crashing drums and towering distortion, as she threads together body image, family tension, and the psychic weight of just trying to hold it together. It’s a confessional torch song for the end of your rope.
The song’s video stars up-and-coming French actress Ghjuvanna Benedetti and was directed by Emilé Moutaud. The video takes us into the day of a diving team and the internal burnout of one of the divers. It captures the moment when the ordinary aspects of her life clash with the weight of what she’s feeling inside.
‘If You Asked For A Picture’ tracklisting
Thumbtack
T&A
Arms
What’s Fair
Two Times
Event Of A Fire
23’s A Baby
Change
To
He Wants Me
Man
Model Rockets
‘If You Asked For A Picture’ borrows its title from a 1986 poem by the cherished American writer Mary Oliver, titled “Dogfish.” In it, Oliver grapples with the idea of telling one’s own story: how much to share, how much to keep for oneself — all questions Teitelbaum asked herself while writing the forthcoming LP. “There’s a part of the poem that says: ‘I don’t need to tell you everything I’ve been through. It’s just another story of somebody trying to survive,’” Teitelbaum says. “Something I love about songs is that you’re showing a snapshot of a person or a relationship, and showing a glimpse into a story can be just as important as trying to capture the entire thing. Sometimes it’s even truer to the entire picture than if you tried to write everything down.”
Pre-order ‘If You Asked For A Picture’ HERE.