Nerina Pallot releases her seventh studio album 'I Don't Know What I'm Doing', alongside new single 'Only The Old Ones' on June 17th through Idaho Records / InGrooves

UK TOUR ANNOUNCED FOR OCTOBER 2022

After releasing a warm and vibrant array of gems throughout the last few months, including ‘Alice At The Beach’ and ‘Cold Places’, which was described by The Sunday Times as "Beautifully orchestrated by Sally Herbert, the Jersey singer's new track combines lush pastoralia, a characteristically serpentine melody and lyrics imbued with yearning and defiance", Nerina Pallot has now released her seventh studio album ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’ alongside the soaring new single ‘Only The Old Songs’.

Throughout the lead up to this new collection, Nerina Pallot has focused herself on the rich and captivating piano-led textures of her tenure, and the vibrant aesthetic behind the record’s focus single ‘Only The Old Songs’ is no exception. Inspired by the personal strife she and so many others experienced during the pandemic, her final offering highlights the strength we can always conjure during difficult times, even if it is sometimes the things we take for granted.

Speaking about ‘Only The Old Songs’, she said, "The first line of the song, ‘bread and roses’ has long been associated with various suffrage and labour movements. My understanding of it is the idea that we need that which keeps our bodies alive (bread) but must also make sure to feed our souls (roses). It was hard to feel useful during the most extreme days of the pandemic - I have no medical or scientific training to speak of, and it was humbling and frustrating to watch the world grind to a halt and not be able to help in some way. How powerless did so many of us feel? The spirit was willing but the flesh was mostly incapable.

“I took refuge in music - listening to it, making it and doing an online gig from my home once a week for a few months.

“Those few hours of immersion in music were, for so many of us, respite. Comfort. Release. Not being able to see or hold my parents or close family, it became important to me to listen to the music from my childhood; the songs I associated with happier times and the feeling that everything would be alright. ABBA, Kate Bush, The Beatles, Prince, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Carole King: they were my best friends, holding my hand during my daily hour of government sanctioned exercise.

“It was pure joy to record this song - to be with my friends again, doing what we love most and feeling useful again."

The release of ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’ will also coincide with the release of the film ‘Lost Girls’, which will feature one of Nerina's previously released songs 'The Hold Tight'.

Nerina also recently announced a UK tour taking place in October. Tickets on sale now.

Full rundown of dates below:

08th - Cambridge - Storeys Field

09th - Norwich - Epic Studios

10th - Brighton - Komedia Studio Bar

12th - Guildford - Boileroom

13th - London - Lafayette

14th - Manchester - Gorilla

16th - Birmingham - Glee Club

17th - Bath - Komedia

19th - Glasgow - St Lukes

20th - Gateshead -Sage 2

21st - York - NCEM

Some art comes to its creator like a crack of thunder: a strike of inspiration out of the blue. Other projects require nurturing; they need to be coaxed out of their hiding places like shy creatures. In the case of Nerina Pallot’s magnificent seventh album ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’, it turned out to be a case of the latter. This record is the product of more than three years of songwriting and studio sessions, resulting in what is undoubtedly one of her finest works to date. It is filled with memories of childhood, strange tales of fate and coincidence, and beautifully realised reflections of self. It’s about making mistakes, learning from them, and celebrating life for as long as we have breath in our bodies.

‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’ Tracklist:

Cold Places

Alice At The Beach

Master Builder

There's a River

Born

I Don't Know What I'm Doing

The Way We Are

Mama

Only The Old Songs

Australia

Don't Dare (Love Is Hell)

Fun

“I’m really happy to be here,” she says, beaming. “For the first part of my career I was constantly being compared to people who were bigger than me at the time. Now? I don’t care! I don’t fucking care! What do I have to lose by standing up for myself?”

Album track “Born”, is a gorgeously understated song about remembering to value the people in your life. “We all make a mess of living/ We all try to carry on,” she sings. “We try to make the best of it until the day we’re done./ We’ve all got a hurt we’re hiding/ We’ve all got someone we mourn.”

“Born” is followed on I Don’t Know What I’m Doing by the title track, possibly the kind of song Bob Dylan was trying to make when he wrote his ill-fated 1986 album, Knocked Out Loaded. She sings in a weathered but hopeful, lilting cadence: “Just leaving my bed is something these days.” The acoustic guitar meanders sweetly with no clear direction, gathering steam as Pallot’s conviction grows: “In the no-fucking-clue club, you’ll never be wrong.” It’s her reminder to stop judging herself by other people’s successes, or the artists she’s been compared to in the past. “I think because I’m always aiming for something beyond me, there’s always that fate that I’m never quite getting there,” she admits. “But I love the challenge, and I don’t think I’ll ever get bored. I think I’ll be 70 and still trying to write my ‘Hounds of Love’.”

Regardless of the favourable comparisons Pallot earns over the course of her career, she remains brilliantly and defiantly unique. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is her outstanding cover “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, featured in the BBC’s universally acclaimed adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. Pallot’s version opens on a stark piano rendition of that instantly recognisable melody; her voice lands with a kind of fatalistic, angry resignation, the very essence of going up in flames. “When I first started playing that song, it was almost like a fuck-you to my ex-boyfriend,” Pallot says. “It didn’t end well. I don’t think I’ve ever been that sad and angry at the end of any other relationship, and that song was the only one that made me feel OK.” All these years later, she sings it the exact same way: “It’s almost like it’s my own song – I stopped singing it like a cover, because it was articulating everything I felt at the time.”

Contrast this with album closer “Fun”, a playfully theatrical tribute to Pallot’s husband, Jersey-born record producer and songwriter Andy Chatterley. Family gets another look-in on “Mama”, influenced by her mother’s favourite artist, British icon Elkie Brooks. The track is saturated in the classic soul sound of the Sixties and Seventies, with a chorus redolent of Dee Dee Warwick’s “You’re No Good”. Through fraught times, Pallot took refuge in her music and now, listeners can find solace in it, too.

‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’ is available on digital, CD, vinyl, and cassette from all good music stores, platforms, and available to purchase from her official web store HERE

DISCOVER NERINA PALLOT

lorraine longJune 17, 2022