Nine-time Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and pianist Norah Jones has released her seventh solo studio album, Pick Me Up Off The Floor on the 'heritage' label Blue Note Records.
The album features guest appearances from Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and drummer Brian Blade on a set of 11 new songs written or co-written by Jones.
It seems that the musician didn't actually mean to make another album. After she finished touring 2016's Day Breaks album, she resorted to a series of short sessions with the likes of Mavis Staples, Rodrigo Amarante and Thomas Bartlett of The Gloaming for a string of well-received singles.
These studio outings almost unwittingly morphed into Pick Me Up Off The Floor. "Every session I've done, there've been extra songs I didn't release, and they've sort of been collecting for the last two years," says Jones. "I became really enamoured with them, having the rough mixes on my phone, listening while I walk the dog.
"The songs stayed stuck in my head and I realised that they had this surreal thread running through them. It feels like a fever dream taking place somewhere between God, the Devil, the heart, the Country, the planet, and me."
"Living in this country - this world - the last few years, I think there's an underlying sense of, 'Lift me up. Let's get up out of this mess and try to figure some things out,'" says Jones.
"If there's a darkness to this album, it's not meant to be an impending sense of doom, if feels more like a human longing for connection. Some of the songs that are personal also apply to the larger issues we're all facing. And some of the songs that are about very specific larger things also feel quite personal."
"I don't know if I was just in a zone or if this process turned it on, but I’ve felt more creative in the last year than I ever have," says the mega-selling chanteuse, whose 2002 debut album Come Away With Me sold nearly 40 million albums, making it one of the biggest-selling albums of all time.
Her songs have been streamed five billion times worldwide. Following the massive success of her debut, she has released a series of solo albums, Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007), The Fall (2009), Little Broken Hearts (2012), and Day Breaks (2016).
There have also been albums released with her collective bands, The Little Willies, El Madmo, and Puss N Boots
