Indigo Girls Take a Long Look

From the looks of their latest promotional photo, I figured that in the wake of canceled tour dates due to COVID-19 Amy ‘n’ Emily had started a house painting/gutter cleaning/small carpentry repair business, with 30% of profits going toward the Indigenous Gay and Lesbian Communist Workers of Color Against Fracking Alliance Network, but nope, it’s just time for another Indigo Girls album.

Their first since 2015, Look Long was pushed back from its original April 24 release date, and will now be available May 22 via Rounder Records. With Emily Saliers and Amy Ray appearing on the cover art in old photographs of them as children, the album was recorded in Bath, England, and produced by John Reynolds, who also produced Indigo Girls’ Come On Now Social. That’s not the only connection to that 1999 album, described by Ray as “one of the most important moments in our musical growth” – for Look Long they also reconvened the players that backed them on Come On Now Social: Reynolds on drums, Clare Kenny on bass, Carole Isaacs on keyboards, Caroline Dalea on cello and Justin Adams on guitar. Vocalists Lucy Wainwright Roche, Lucy Jules and their longtime violinist Lyris Hung also contribute their talents.

Indigo Girls were one of the first major musical acts to conduct a quarantined online livestream on March 19, which reached close to 80,000 viewers. In the weeks leading up to the new album’s release date, they’ll do three more concert/Q&A livestreams each Thursday – May 7, May 14 and May 21 – at 7 p.m. ET on Facebook Live and Instagram Live.

Photo by Jeremy Cowart.