It’s been three years since Ashley Monroe released her GRAMMY-nominated LP The Blade, and on April 20, we can finally hear the music she’s been working on all this time!
The Warner Music Nashville recording artist is expected to release her fourth studio album Sparrow in April. In 2015, Monroe started writing songs that realized themselves in unexpected ways – nudged loose after working through trauma and turmoil from her childhood. “I was unpacking a lot of stuff,” she says. “I was singing, and identifying what it’s like to be left. No one told me what I should do, back then, when the world started to crumble.”
After losing her father when she was young, Monroe and her mother grappled with the challenging experience of learning their new roles in his absence. Through the songs of Sparrow, Monroe and producer Dave Cobb turned these experiences into moody, orchestral recordings that explore all sides of a fully formed woman unashamed of her scars – the maternal tendencies, the childlike wonder, the sultry moments behind closed doors.
Working with some of her closest collaborators, including Brendan Benson and Waylon Payne, Monroe recorded and wrote many songs on Sparrow while she was pregnant with her first child. “I felt powerful,” she says. “I wasn’t puffing, I wasn’t drinking wine, I was just singing.”
“I knew I wanted to work with Dave,” Monroe says. “All of his records are consistently awesome and classic, timeless, old and new all in one.” Together, they shared their favorite records and music moments, like early Elton John LPs and Glenn Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman,” molding Sparrow into its own unique sonic space. “Country music is a wide genre, and that’s OK,” Monroe says. “I don’t even know what genre this record is, but I know it’s me.”
Pre-order details and tracklisting are forthcoming. The full-length’s first track — “Hands On You” is available now with the music video below.
