Amber Arcades shares new single “Alpine Town”

Amber Arcades shares new single "Alpine Town"
Amber Arcades

Annelotte De Graaf AKA: Amber Arcades has shared new track “Alpine Town”. The track is off her her forthcoming release European Heartbreak, due for release on September 28th, 2018 via Heavenly Recordings.

Amber Arcades on “Alpine Town”:

“I wrote this song exactly a year ago while on holiday in Guillestre, a small town in the French Alps. I was kind of in a sad place and my boyfriend had dragged me along to get away from all that, but I guess it doesn’t really work like that, ha. It just made me reflect on the sad part of the tourist condition as a metaphor for life, man.”

“Alpine Town” follows the release of “Goodnight Europe” and “Simple Song”. These singles featured accompanying videos forming parts one and two in a video trilogy aiming to give a deeper understanding of the album and De Graaf’s thinking around what is currently happening in Europe, love, the passing of time and how the three intertwine. Both feature music from European Heartbreak and part three is forthcoming.

European Heartbreak was recorded and co-produced in LA with Chris Cohen from Deerhoof and in Richmond, Virginia with Trey Pollard (Natalie Prass, The Waterboys, Bedouine) who oversaw horn and string overdubs from Spacebomb. A vast step forward from her critically acclaimed debut album Fading Lines, this selection of songs flit around Europe, from Berlin to Spain to the south of France. It’s European not just in lyrical theme but in the sly sophistication of its music: songs that carry with them the air of open-topped cars on clifftop roads, of cocktails on the terrace at sunset. And then the lyrics undercut that sunny mood, artfully and skillfully.

Annelotte says the following about the album:”If it were called American Heartbreak, you wouldn’t bat an eye. Somehow calling it European Heartbreak feels far less comfortable, almost like a statement in itself. I’m Dutch, hence European. The focus of the record is Europe. As for Heartbreak, for mea heartbreak symbolises any kind of falling apart of one of these concepts or stories we invent for ourselves, like romantic love, a sense of identity, nationality, an economic system. It’s kind of a universal thing in my mind.”

After recording sessions in LA, Annelotte embarked on a week-long road trip through California’s national parks ending up in Death Valley, viewing the sunset from a famous vantage point. Surrounded by tourists with their smartphones, all very much not of their environment, the moment captured the sense of alientation that haunts the album’s 11 songs. Everything clicked, it all came together: our quest for meaning, our ongoing existential crisis, our desire to live life to the fullest, and our need to convince ourselves we are doing so and to try to prove it to the world: through something as mundane as holiday photos. Photos taken at this moment would end up forming the album artwork and imagery.

Amber Arcades
European Heartbreak
track listing:

1. Simple Song
2. Hardly Knew
3. Oh My Love (What Have We Done)
4. Goodnight Europe
5. Alpine Town
6. I’ve Done The Best
7. Self-Portrait in a Car at Night
8 . Something’s Gonna Take Your Love Away
9. Antoine
10. Where Did You Go
11. Baby, Eternity