Taylor Swift is not the only one re-recording fairly recent albums. Now Brandi Carlile has done it, although with very different reasons than the ones that prompted Swift to revisit her catalog. Carlile has gone back into the studio to redo last year’s “In These Silent Days” in its entirety, in a new, acoustic-focused version that’s been titled “In the Canyon Haze.”
The newly recorded album will be out Sept. 28 and is preceded today by “You and Me on the Rock (In the Canyon Haze),” a remake that features her wife, Catherine Carlile, on harmony vocals.
Carlile said that the project came about when she was looking at putting out a deluxe edition of “Silent Days” for the album’s upcoming anniversary, with bonus tracks, but settled on a way to make the entire album a bonus. The “canyon” part alludes to how the artist thinks the re-do aims for a vintage Laurel Canyon spirit in the reconfigured arrangements.
The new album follows the running order of the original album exactly, with the exception of an acoustic cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” which she often performs in concert, tagged onto the end.
“I knew I wanted to offer our fans more than just the usual ‘bonus track’ that always feels like a creative way to ask fans to buy your album twice,” she said in a statement. “So, the twins (Phil and Tim Hanseroth) and I locked ourselves in the attic studio in my barn just like the old days… and we reimagined our entire record.”
Citing the “Joni jams” she’s taken part in at her famous friend’s home in the Santa Barbara area, Carlile said she “conjured up imagery from the infamous music scene in Laurel Canyon… I could see the cast of California Dreamers with embroidered flowers and peace signs on their backs drifting through a polaroid haze. I could smell the marijuana and the incense. I could hear the CSN harmonies traveling through the canyon from Lookout Mountain and the accompanying laughter of Mama Cass. I could hear the reverb of aged wood and the dulcimer being strummed like a drum. The familiar chord progressions, confessions and communal spirit that would birth timeless songs… songs we all wish we had written. I could feel the liberation, the friction and freedom from modern-day digital distractions that laid such fertile ground at the feet of west coast poets and troubadours.”
While the digital and CD versions will be released Sept. 28, a multi-color double-LP vinyl version will wait until Nov. 25, at which point it will be available only in indie stores — coinciding with the Black Friday edition of Record Store Day. The vinyl will become more widely available the following Friday, Dec. 2. Pre-order details can be found here.
Carlile continues to tour behind the original “In These Silent Days” album, with her next dates being sold-out stops at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre Sept. 9-10. The tour wraps up Oct. 22 at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The singer-songwriter will also perform at the Americana Honors & Awards ceremony in Nashville Sept. 14, where she’s up for three awards.
