Artist Amanda Palmer went on social media earlier to announce her upcoming EP New Zealand Survival will be released in January 2024. On the post, the artist shares the meaning behind her upcoming album: “Some songwriters thrived during the pandemic. I did not. While I was living accidentally in New Zealand, navigating a collapsed marriage, solo motherhood, a foreign country, and a world on fire, I got a lot of ideas for songs. But I barely wrote them down. I couldn’t. I had to put the kiddo first, most days.”
Palmer adds: “But. In the two and half years I was waylaid over there, wondering daily when I would return home, I did manage to write four (well, kinda five) songs. They weren’t written to be pretty or commercially successful. They were actual “records” of confusion, anger, trauma, gratitude, and reckoning, and they were pure catharsis in the hardest moment of my life.”
In light of her upcoming album, the musician has shared her song “Little Island,” which is duet with Julia Deans (indie royalty from New Zealand, from the band Fur Patrol.) According to the social media post, “Little Island” is about “my complicated love letter to a complicated country with a complicated relationship to my complicated country. It helps to know that 1) The Mongrel Mob is a gang in New Zealand (sorta like their Latin Kings), and 2) Kiwis really do take issue with being called a “Little Island”, especially in reference to how they kept Covid away. The country is bigger than the U.K.” said Palmer.
The artist adds: “Soon, I’m going to drop a beautiful video for “Little Island” (filmed on Waiheke Island with Julia Deans in the Stoney Batter World War II Tunnels). And I’m going on a short tour to promote this baby. I’ll be there to tell you the stories in person.”
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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