Keep Your Courage

Product Information

Richard, Sam (March 6, 2023). "Send us your questions for Natalie Merchant!". Uncut . Retrieved April 12, 2023.

She is also learning Italian in preparation for a future musical project that will adapt Italian poetry. “I fund everything myself so there is no diluting the work; I don’t consult with anybody in the corporate realm. I take the risk and I accept the risk. My relationship to the music business is very remote – I exist in my own world.” Keep Your Courage is the natural progression of that path. Working with seven different arrangers and over two dozen musicians, it’s not her biggest project – 2011’s Leave Your Sleep takes that crown with 135 players – but it is her most ravishing. Merchant has never been one to do things half-heartedly, but every note and detail here feels deeply considered in a way that goes beyond her own strict standards. “I don’t believe in filler,” she tells me, firmly. “I get accused of being not prolific, but I just believe in quality over quantity.” These songs are alchemy in the highest form possible.We all need to be reminded that such beauty exists.” – Valerie June Ultratop.be – Natalie Merchant – Keep Your Courage" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved April 25, 2023.Turning our attention to the visual senses and one finds the album’s artwork to be truly unique. Merchant normally appears on her cover art design, but the Joan of Arc statue certainly plays into the album’s title as well as much of the lyrical context throughout. The chosen design, with the coloured elements in the lower left-hand corner, is intriguing for I can’t fathom their purpose or meaning, but they simply work. Without them, the album cover would have been a little visually dull in its monochromatic state. When you started writing songs again, was there any ramping up period? How did you find yourself writing differently this time around? Keep Your Courage is Natalie’s ninth solo studio album and the first of new material since her 2014’s self-titled record. An eclectic album, produced by Merchant, it features two duets sung with vocalist Abena Koomson-Davis (Resistance Revival Chorus), contributions from the Celtic folk group Lúnasa, Syrian virtuoso clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and horn arrangements by jazz trombonist Steve Davis. There are lush orchestrations throughout by seven composers including: Gabriel Kahane, Stephen Barber, Colin Jacobsen, David Spear and Megan Gould. Keep Your Courage comprises nine original songs by Merchant as well as an interpretation of “Hunting the Wren” by Ian Lynch of the Irish band Lankum.

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Natalie Merchant– Keep Your Courage". AllMusic . Retrieved May 31, 2023.MERCHANT: But my mother was a massive fan of classical music, and she was a single mom with four kids, so no money. And we lived near Chautauqua Institution, which had orchestra concerts in the summer every Tuesday and Saturday night. And we would sneak in a hole in the fence and go to the symphony. So from the time I was really young, I really have a great appreciation for symphonic music. And to be standing in front of an orchestra, it's such a privilege.

It was a time when there was still slavery and women had absolutely no rights whatsoever. Native American people were being murdered on their own land. And he was aware of all that. He was a reporter, and he volunteered in the hospitals of both the Union and the Confederacy [in the American Civil War], caring for men who were dying of the racism and horrible hatred that turned our country against itself. He lived through all of that but could still say, ‘I believe in the promise of this country’.” I was raising my daughter, and I’m a single mom... My days are so full that it never occurred to me that I should sit down and write a song. I was just focused on so many other things. It’s an indulgence to sit down with the piano and sing. It got to the point where I forgot that I was a songwriter, or that I could write songs.” Keep Your Courage is her first of all-new material in nine years. It’s also her most beautiful in decades.’

Contributors

MERCHANT: (Singing) Come on, Aphrodite. Can't you see that I've been patient? Come on, Aphrodite. Can't you see how long I've waited? Over her forty-year career, Natalie Merchant has attained a place among America’s most respected recording artists. She has earned a reputation for being a songwriter of quality and a captivating stage performer and has distinguished herself as a social justice and environmental activist. Merchant began her musical career as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the pop music band 10,000 Maniacs and released one platinum, two double-platinum, and one triple-platinum records with the group: The Wishing Chair (1985), In My Tribe (1987), Blind Man’s Zoo (1989), Hope Chest (1990), Our Time in Eden (1992), and 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged (1993). Merchant left the group in 1994 and has subsequently released nine albums as a solo artist with combined sales of seven million copies: Tigerlily (1995), Ophelia (1998), Natalie Merchant Live (1999), Motherland (2001), The House Carpenter’s Daughter (2003), Leave Your Sleep (2010), Natalie Merchant (2014), Paradise Is There (2015), and Butterfly (2017). Keep Your Courage features two duets sung with Abena Koomson-Davis of Resistance Revival Chorus, plus contributions from the Celtic folk group Lúnasa and Syrian virtuoso clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and horn arrangements by jazz trombonist Steve Davis. Along with nine original songs by Merchant, it includes an interpretation of “Hunting The Wren” by Ian Lynch of Lankum.