Joan Shelley announces new album Real Warmth and shares lead track, “Everybody”

Joan Shelley returns with a new album, Real Warmth. The follow-up to her 2022 album The Spur, it’s released on September 19 by No Quarter.

Shelley has also shared “Everybody” from the album, which you can hear below.

Real Warmth was produced at Casa Wroxton in Toronto by Ben Wheatley – bassist for The Weather Station and Jake Xerxes Fussell – and features drummer Philippe Melanson, saxophonist Karen Ng, singer/songwriters Doug Paisley and Tamara Lindeman, Matt Kelley and Ken Whiteley. Shelley’s partner, guitarist Nathan Salsburg, also appears.

Says Wheatley, “We had a few windows in mid-winter and it really felt like there was an urgency to capture a moment in time with these songs, performances, people involved, and against the political backdrop. The record really feels like a capture instead of a meticulous construction. Part of Joan’s concept was not only to go to a place but to draw on the community of musicians from that place.”

Offering three mutually inclusive readings of the album’s title, Shelley says:

“The warmth of actual bodies: connection and belonging as opposed to the facades we show each other, in person and also in the lifeless online world.

“A spiritual, humane warmth as opposed to performative or superficial kindness where love only applies to one’s own group, but will permit incredible suffering for another. How massive an effort it is to still love people at this time, in this place. 

“The real warmth of the planet and the urgency of our moment. Finding ways to guard the fragile world and gentle people; searching for balance between extremes.”

Tracklisting for Real Warmth is:

Here in the High and Low

On the Gold and Silver

Field Guide To Wild Life

Wooden Boat

For When You Can’t Sleep

Everybody

New Anthem

Heaven Knows

Ever Entwine

Give It Up, It’s Too Much

The Orchard

Who Do You Want Checking In On You

The Hum

You can pre-order the album here.

Shelley has also announced a run of Canadian and US tour dates:

October 16 – Monarch Tavern – Toronto, ON

October 18 – The Parlor Room – Northampton, MA

October 19 – Nova Arts – Keene, NH

October 21 – Passim – Boston, MA

October 22 – Public Records – Brooklyn, NY

October 23 – Harmonie Hall – Philadelphia, PA

November 2¹ – Constellation – Chicago, IL

Nomember 23 – The Whirling Tiger – Louisville, KY