Five years after her critically acclaimed album forevher, Shura is back with her
highly anticipated third studio album I Got Too Sad For My Friends. A pastoral
blend of chamber pop, sixties folk and campfire Americana, it builds Shuras
introspective songwriting out into a vast landscape more tranquil than the
soulful bounce of forevher, and more rustic than the brooding synth-pop of
her 2016 debut Nothings Real.
That landscape is both sonically comforting and representative of her
headspace during the writing process, which was one of sadness and isolation.
The itinerant emotional state is mirrored in the artwork, which sees Shura
perched on a Welsh mountainside in a baggy jumper, ripped jeans, Converse,
and cobbled-together armour that covers everything except her vital organs
part Kurt Cobain, part Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet. The image
references the French novella The Little Prince, which follows a young boy who
sets out to explore other planets to cure his loneliness.
Though its an album exploring themes of depression and loneliness, I Got Too
Sad For My Friends is far from dejected it retains Shuras usual crystalline sound
and precision while introducing a different kind of warmth and earthiness.
Approached like an old school record that captures a performance rather than
a production, much of the album was recorded live, with the keys, bass, guitar,
and drums all tracked as a single performance. The vocals were done separately
with the exception of soft funk track Ringpull.
The decision to explore a wider breadth of instruments for the first time came
from a sense of urgency that was, in part, prompted by the pandemic. It made
me think: this could be over at any minute. I could never get to make a record
again. I could never tour again. So my approach to this record was like, if I never
get to do this again, what do I want to make sure I’ve done? I want to record
live. I want to work with textures I’ve never worked with before. I want to dress
up as a gnome bard knight and climb a mountain in Wales, regret it, and have
no one else to blame except for myself because I’m freezing, she laughs. So
even though its not necessarily a maximalist record in terms of how it sounds,
the approach was maximal joy for me making it which is hilarious, because it’s
about being miserable!
CD housed in a 4-panel digisleeve with matt machine varnish finish, CD wallet, 16 pages lyrics and credits booklet, and printed on-body.