Laura Stevenson - Wheel (Deluxe Version) (2014)

Laura Stevenson's new album Wheel features strings by Grammy award winning violinist Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Antony And The Johnsons), brass accompaniment from Kelly Pratt (Beirut, Arcade Fire, David Byrne and St. Vincent), and was produced and mixed by Kevin McMahon (Swans, Titus Andronicus, Frightened Rabbit, Real Estate). Laura Stevenson was born and raised on Long Island with music in her blood. Her grandfather Harry Simeone a successful composer (“Little Drummer Boy”, “Do You Hear What I hear”) and her grandmother Margaret McCravy a singer for bandleader Benny Goodman. On Wheel she pours geography and heritage into the record, tackling family dynamics of dependence and support, and the feelings of isolation and insignificance that she has experienced while growing up surrounded by a vast body of water on a planet surrounded by an endlessly expanding universe. The album is also about coming to terms with these relationships and feelings, as well as her own and other’s mortality. Many of the lyrics on the album explore these themes before coming back to an understanding and acceptance of our place in the world, the short time we will spend here, and the people we end up sharing it with.