''Still, Here'' is the tenth studio album by

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: *Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon *Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine *Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel Portland may also r ...

guitarist

Marisa Anderson Marisa Anderson is an American guitarist and composer based in Portland, Oregon. She is primarily known for mixing American primitive guitar with various genres from throughout the United States and the rest of the world, and for her largely i ...

, released September 23, 2022, by

Thrill Jockey Thrill Jockey is an American independent record label established by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards and based in Chicago. History Richards started the label in 1992 with $35,000 of family and personal capital, while ...

. The eight-track album consists of six original compositions and two arrangements of traditional songs. Anderson recorded every instrument, including multiple keyboards and numerous guitars, herself.

Background

The album was announced June 16 along with the release of lead single "Waking". Second single "

La Llorona (; ) is a vengeful ghost in Hispanic American folklore who is said to roam near bodies of water mourning her children whom she drowned in a jealous rage after discovering her husband was unfaithful to her. Whoever hears her crying either suffer ...

", an arrangement of a traditional Mexican song named after the legendary spirit of Hispanic-American folklore, was released August 8. Third single "The Fire This Time", named after

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (né Jones; August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'' has been ranked ...

's 1963 essay collection ''

The Fire Next Time ''The Fire Next Time'' is a 1963 non-fiction book by James Baldwin, containing two essays: "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation" and "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind". Th ...

'', was released September 8. Anderson first released "The Fire This Time" for two weeks on her

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...

page, donating over $2,500 of proceeds to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Anderson called the making of the album "probably a four-year process", saying that after her previous solo album '' Cloud Corner'', she wasn't sure she had anything new to say. She "needed a little time and distance", leading to her intervening collaborative albums – '' The Quickening'' with Jim White and '' Lost Futures'' with William Tyler – to give her a change of pace. She said she thinks that move worked, that it "shook some other things loose and now I feel inspired again – and I'm writing new stuff all the time, which is fun." Per Anderson, "The Fire This Time" is about the

murder of George Floyd On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old White police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported that he made a purchase using a c ...

and was written while

protests A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...

were ongoing, with police sirens audible in the recording and the music representing her "visceral, horrified response to those events".

Style

Per ''Dusted''s Jennifer Kelly, the album is, "as always, lovely, serene and rooted in blues and folk traditions." ''Pitchfork''s Andy Cush calls her

fingerpicking Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectr ...

technique reminiscent of both Piedmont blues and

flamenco Flamenco () is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the Gitanos, gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Region of Murcia, ...

, and notes some tracks which take influence from early

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

Mississippi Fred McDowell Fred McDowell (January 12, 1904 – July 3, 1972), known by his stage name Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist of hill country blues music. Career McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee. His parents we ...

, and

sunshine pop Sunshine pop, originally called soft pop and soft rock, is a loosely defined form of pop music that was first associated with early soft rock producers and songwriters based in Los Angeles, California, during the mid-to late 1960s. Its recording ...

. Cush says every song has its own identity.

Reception

Track listing

Personnel

– composer,

arranger In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestrat ...

, producer,

recording engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproducti ...

nylon-string guitar The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the modern steel-string a ...

steel-string guitar The steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar that descends from the gut-strung Romantic guitar, but is strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. Like the modern classical guitar, it is often referred to simply ...

, electric guitar,

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a console steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings, enabling more varied and complex music to be played than with other steel guitar designs. Like all steel guitars, it can play ...

requinto guitar A requinto guitar is a smaller version of a classical guitar, with a scale length between 52-54cm. It is tuned a fourth higher than a standard classical guitar, to A2-D3-G3-C4-E4-A4. They often, but not always, have a cutout to reach the higher ...

, electric piano, synthesizer * Jesse Munro Johnson –

mixing engineer A mixing engineer (or simply mix engineer) is responsible for combining ("mixing") different sonic elements of an auditory piece into a complete rendition (also known as "final mix" or "mixdown"), whether in music, film, or any other content of a ...

* Amy Dragon –

mastering engineer Mastering is a form of audio post production which is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the Audio mixing (recorded music), final mix to a data storage device called a master recording, the source ...

* Dante Korinto – photography * Daniel Castrejon – design

References

{{Authority control 2022 albums Marisa Anderson albums Thrill Jockey albums Blues albums by American artists Folk albums by American artists