Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - New Fragility

Milky Clear Translucent Vinyl. Limited Edition /1000

What are we to make of the world? In many ways, the title New Fragility perfectly sums up our collective state of unease and anxiety, but it's particularly apt for singer songwriter Alec Ounsworth AKA Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and the trauma he's spent the best part of three years processing. "It's pretty personal, " says Ounsworth. "It's about what I think we're all experiencing at the moment, certainly here in the United States anyway - trying to move forward amidst an almost cruel uncertainty."

Few have been as consistently brilliant, eclectic, and intimate; fewer still have done so while being defiantly, 100% independent, refusing to sign deals that compromise artistic vision. New Fragility is a continuation of this, yet it also stands apart as one his strongest collection of songs yet. Personal yet universal, New Fragility confronts numerous modern ills. 'Where They Perform Miracles', a song concerning spirituality and alternative methods of healing, harks back to Ounsworth's time as an anthropology student doing fieldwork in Mexico, while 'Dee, Forgiven' is an intimate look at what harm anxiety, and the over-prescription of certain medication, has on the vitality of youth. The song contains one of Ounsworth's strongest vocals yet - a quivering beacon that shifts from a wail to a low grumble in the blink of an eye, a remarkable expressive instrument that sits perfectly amid the understanded orchestration. For 15 years, it's been one of music's most distinctive voices, and it's never sounded as rich or poised. Together with his keen ear for melody and his unique, eclectic approach to composition - witness the gentle acoustic picking of 'Where They Perform Miracles', the spacious strings and woozy synths of 'CYHSY, 2005', or the rambling, slowed down bar-room blues of album closer 'If I Were More Like Jesus' - New Fragility is the sound of an artist completely at ease in his work, and unafraid to confront the difficult questions that haunt us all. "And I'm climbing this ladder / My head in the clouds", he sings on the latter. "I hope that it matters." As a metaphor for his career to date (and also an inside joke - borrowing this lyric directly from Neil Young's "Borrowed Tune"), it is pretty perfect - the dreamer, forever chasing his muse and musical inspiration. New Fragility is simply the latest chapter, and another classic entry in the canon of one of independent music's brightest, and most durable, artists. New Fragility will be released on CYHSY/Secretly Distribution. The album was produced by Alec Ounsworth, with additional production from Will Johnson, recorded by Britton Beisenherz in Austin, TX and mixed by John Agnello in New Jersey, mastered by Greg Calbi.