Hear Lindi Ortega’s Country-Noir Collaboration With John Paul White
Although Lindi Ortega now calls Nashville home, she’s spent most of the past four years on the road, crooning her orchestral version of country noir in honky-tonks, biker bars, rock dives and punk venues. Hers is a sound rooted in twang and heartbreak, but shot through with the rough-edged spirit of rock & roll, too.
Looking to record an album whose songs were just as varied as her audience, Ortega turned to three sets of producers for this year’s Faded Gloryville: Dave Cobb, the Americana all-star behind recent releases by Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell; Colin Linden, who recorded her 2012 album Cigarettes & Truckstops; and the Muscle Shoals-based team of Alabama Shakes keyboardist Ben Tanner and former Civil Wars member John Paul White. Ortega and White sang together on several of the Muscle Shoals songs and teamed up to co-write “Someday Soon,” a slow, shuffling breakup ballad that pitches its tent somewhere between southern soul and classic country. (Listen to the song, which spins the tale of a jilted lover who’s trying to summon up the energy to leave, below.)
“It’s a song about intention and longing to make a change for the better,” Ortega says of “Someday Soon,” “but it’s kind of left ambiguous as to whether that change actually happens. Oftentimes, we are left in limbo of our own inability to act on our intentions. [John and I] tried to tap into that feeling of knowing a change must be made, and daydreaming about it, and the thought processes that happens before you leave someone who is no good for you. . .or you continue to stay.”
Ortega will release Faded Gloryville on August 7th.