Julie Byrne's new piano ballad 'Moonless'
JULIE BYRNE
NEW SINGLE “MOONLESS”
LYRIC VIDEO:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czke8Hmc5rY
THE GREATER WINGS OUT JULY 7TH VIA GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL
2023 UK & IRELAND TOUR DATES
Early Praise for The Greater Wings: "A truly exquisite artist" Clash "Sublimating grief into a work of extended rapture" Uncut "a true masterclass" Loud & Quiet
"a spellbinding record” The Guardian "the most beautiful work of her career thus far" Gold Flake Paint "practically aches with life, throbbing and bristling with beauty, serenity, and inevitable sense of melancholy." Beats Per Minute A powerful return from one of our sharpest songwriters" Paste
Julie Byrne releases a lyric video for “Moonless,” the first song she has ever written and performed on the piano and the final single from her highly anticipated and life-affirming new album, The Greater Wings, out July 7th via Ghostly International.
"Moonless" is an ode to the glistening darkness, partially written on an outlying island of southern Portugal where Byrne was completing an artist residency. "I remember walking through the dune systems on the ocean side of Culatra, the noises of the docks, the scent of tidal flats. The land itself, as a coastal formation, in a constant state of movement between erosion and growth." The hypnotic piano ballad is a portal into the lost, late night with beckoning sensorial detail: voices rising through the smoke, the tactility of names carved in the table, wind moving in off the ocean, across skin. Just as the scene begins to feel eternal, Byrne upends notions of the torch song. "Moonless" does not pine for the return of another but instead speaks to the alleviation of no longer waiting for someone's love. "Something I love about being a songwriter, especially as a queer woman, is being able to have the last word in my work, becoming myself line by line. This is a breakup song, and it's the first song I wrote on piano." Her new instrument fades into pools of eventide. A bare constellation of strings end the story like sparks rising in the darkness, then vanishing into ash.
The Greater Wings was written across several seasons, pulling imagery from nights on tour, periods of isolation, and the drives cross-country for its various collaborations between Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Recording started with the late Eric Littmann (Phantom Posse, Steve Sobs), her longtime creative partner and Not Even Happiness producer, and finished in the Catskills of New York with producer Alex Somers (Sigur Rós, Julianna Barwick).
While they hold the plasticity of loss, the songs are universally resonant, unbridled in their devotion and joy. Byrne leans further into atmospheres both expansive and intimate; the lush, evocative songcraft flows between her signature fingerpicked guitar, synthesizer, and a newly adopted piano, made wider by flourishes of harp and strings. It is the transcendent sound of resource, of friendship that was never without romance, of loyalty that burns from within like a heart on fire, and the life force summoned in unrepeatable moments — raw, gorgeous, and wild.
UK & IRELAND TOUR DATES 2023:
23/7 - Hebden Bridge Trades Club 26/7 - London Kings Place Hall w/ Juni Habel 28/7 - Brighton St Bartholomew's Church w/ Juni Habel
18-20/8 - Green Man Festival
16/11 - Leeds Brudenell Social Club
17/11 - Glasgow Mono
18/11 - Manchester St. Michael's Church
22/11 - Bristol The Jam Jar
24/11 - Limerick Dolans Upstairs
25/11 - Dublin Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire
26/11 - Belfast The Black Box
Tickets and international routing: https://juliemariebyrne.com
