Natalie Merchant - Keep Your Courage (2LP Vinyl)

Nonesuch Records will release Natalie Merchant’s Keep Your Courage, her ninth solo studio album and first of new material since 2014’s self-titled record, on April 14, 2023. An eclectic album, produced by Merchant, it features two duets sung with vocalist Abena Koomson-Davis (Resistance Revival Chorus), contributions from the Celtic folk group Lúnasa and Syrian virtuoso clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and horn arrangements by jazz trombonist Steve Davis. There are lush orchestrations throughout by seven composers including: Gabriel Kahane, Stephen Barber, Colin Jacobson, and Megan Gould. Keep Your Courage comprises nine original songs by Merchant as well as an interpretation of “Hunting the Wren” by Ian Lynch of the Irish band Lankum. The vinyl LP edition of Keep Your Courage includes four bonus tracks from earlier albums, previously unreleased on vinyl.

Disc
1 1 Big Girls
2 Come on, Aphrodite
3 Sister Tilly
4 Narcissus
5 Hunting the Wren
6 Guardian Angel
7 Eye of the Storm Disc
2 1 Tower of Babel
2 Song of Himself
3 The Feast of Saint Valentine
4 Spring and Fall: To a Young Child (from 2010’s Leave Your Sleep)
5 Butterfly (from 2017’s Butterfly)
6 Giving up Everything (from 2014’s Natalie Merchant)
7 Frozen Charlotte (from 2017’s Butterfly; original version on 1998’s Ophelia)