Ché Aimee Dorval is raising money to finance the completion of her upcoming album The Crowned, which is tentatively due for September 2021 release. Fans who contribute to the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign will get tickets to an acoustic livestream performance, among other things.
Dorval announced that The Crowned will be her “most ambitious project to date,” saying that she’s in love with the songs and hopes that her fans will help become a part of it. Along with tickets to the livestream, which she said will show her playing songs from the album while out in the woods, crowdfunding contributors will also gain access to a pre-screening of the music video she shot for “Blood Red Son,” which she says pays tribute to Twin Peaks. There will also be handwritten lyric sheets, new shirt designs, posters and other merch options available.
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The Crowned is being produced by Bob Rock, the legendary producer who worked on albums such as The Cult’s Sonic Temple (1989), Mötley Crüe’s Dr. Feelgood (1989), Metallica’s Metallica (The Black Album) (1991) and the rest of their albums from then through their polarizing 2003 release St. Anger, as well as Veruca Salt’s Eight Arms to Hold You (1997) and The Offspring’s Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. Rock also worked on music for other icons like David Lee Roth, Cher, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, The Tragically Hip, Michael Bublé, Gavin Rossdale/Bush, D.O.A., Nelly Furtado and Sarah McLachlan.
In 2017, Dorval released her previous record, Between the Walls and the Window. Although she had shared a singer/songwritery debut in 2009 and released an EP in October 2014 named Vol. 1, Between the Walls and the Window was her first full-length record following her highly acclaimed collaboration with Devin Townsend, their Casualties of Cool self-titled.
While Dorval and Townsend announced that they were working on a new Casualties of Cool album back in 2018, it has yet to surface. That said, they’ve continued collaborating recently, with Townsend featuring Dorval on his “Volume 1” touring lineup and his 2020 live collaborations series called the Quarantine Project, which had a couple of sequels as well.
Almost all of Dorval’s other recent releases have been cover songs. She shared a soulful version of The Mars Volta’s “The Widow” in 2018, an intense take on Jeff Buckley’s “Grace” and a collaborative cover of Jenni Vartiainen’s Finnish pop song “Missä Muruseni On” with Farkosten in 2019, as well as a March 2021 EP called Sad Songs for Quarantined Lovers, which featured renditions of The National’s “90-Mile Water Wall,” Strapping Young Lad’s “Almost Again” and Songs: Ohia’s “Blue Factory Flame” and two originals titled “Try” and “Waiting On Genius.”