Award-Winning Jazz Singer-Songwriter HALIE LOREN Announces New Album Dreams Lost And Found Out April 12 via Nettwerk/Justin Time Records
Award-winning Oregon-based jazz singer-songwriter Halie Loren announces her new album Dreams Lost and Found and shares a vibrant rendition of the Mose Allison classic “Stop This World.” Loren’s take on the song feels bold and brash with a rollicking energy that separates itself from the original. Her signature smokey vocals reinvent the melody in a fresh new way.
Halie explains why she chose to reimagine the song:
“The world is growing ever stranger, and ever more estranging, and it can sometimes feel like the whole dang thing is about to break apart. Luckily, Mose Allison wrote a song for this whole situation. When life just feels too precarious to be funny but too ridiculous not to be a joke, and the whole rig feels just a little too reliant on those paper clips and bits of tape holding it all together, ‘Stop This World’ is the song friend I can always turn to for some cathartic commiseration. It’s world-weary, a little bit brassy, plenty sassy, and features an infectiously groovy second-line rhythm and killer solos (by guitarist Sam Kirmayer and pianist Taurey Butler). In short, it’s ‘The Blues for shaking off the blahs.’”
“Stop This World” follows the silky “For All We Know” which will appear on Halie Loren’s forthcoming album, her first proper album since 2018’s acclaimed LP From the Wild Sky. Dreams Lost and Found is due out on April 12th via Nettwerk/Justin Time Records.
Care to introduce yourself?
I’m a singer, songwriter, recording artist, and producer, with 10 albums out globally and a new album (“Dreams Lost and Found”) releasing on April 12, 2024, on Justin Time Records and JVC Kenwood. I’m originally from Alaska and now reside in Oregon. Besides music, my great loves in life are my family, being out in nature, growing things in my garden, vegan food, and animals – particularly the two very sweet cats I get to live with.
Tell us about the process of recording “Stop This World”? Why that song to cover?
I recorded “Stop This World”, and the album it’s featured on (Dreams Lost and Found), in Montreal in early 2023. I wanted to cover this particular song because I’ve been a long-time fan of Mose Allison’s songs, and this one, in particular, has been part of my live repertoire for almost two decades… though the approach we ended up with for this version, with its New Orleans-inspired rhythm, was borne of this particular collaboration scenario, because as we were playing around with it, the idea seemed to have a special kind of spark for everyone involved, and we found it easy to keep it loose and fun and spontaneous feeling in the studio.
I love the pairing of the lyrics, which are somewhat sardonic and even a little cynical, with the swaggering and lighthearted feeling performance. It feels very of-this-moment, in that way — the idea that “I know everything’s on fire” and “I guess I’ve gotta enjoy the moment anyway” happening simultaneously.
What’s it like being an artist in Eugene, OR?
I love living here, and I have a lot of family here – I feel rooted, which is very important for me and helps me to feel more free when I venture out into the world to do my work (and most of my time as a performer is spent performing outside of Oregon). Eugene has a large number of artists of all mediums, musical and otherwise, so I also get the benefit of being surrounded by and inspired by a vibrant community of creators, while still enjoying the benefits of being in a slower-paced mid-size city with wild nature a literal 10-minute drive from my house. As a born-and-raised northwesterner, access to nature is of enormous importance to me, for my art and my mental health.
Who was the first and most recent Canadian artist to blow you away?
It’s hard to say who my first was since I grew up listening to a lot of Canadian artists who were on frequent rotation in my listening life… Gordon Lightfoot, Diana Krall, Sarah McLachlan, Joni Mitchell… and a lot of others. Most recently, I’ve become a fan of Andy Shauf.
You’ve been making music for a bit of time now, what’s one piece of advice you can offer to those starting out?
It’s hard to believe I’ve been a professional musician for over two decades now! During that span of time, SO much has changed and continues to change about the music industry and what it means to be a musical artist… for me, even at a time when my time and energy have to be spent on such a wide-spanning to-do list and it feels hard to keep up, I find my way through by re-centering on the very thing that made me want to forge this path in the first place: tapping into the music that makes my body hum and my mind clear, that feeling of existing fully at the moment. There are so few experiences in modern life that allow us to be truly present, and creating music is one of them. If you can prioritize time for existing in that space with your music, it will do so much to help prevent burnout and help you find more clarity in all the noise that comes with the work life of a self-directed artist.
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