Today, Faye Webster announces Car Therapy Sessions, an EP of new and re-imagined songs by Webster, backed by a full orchestra. Car Therapy Sessions will be released on April 29th via Secretly Canadian. To mark the occasion she has shared the title track, ‘Car Therapy,’ and its companion video directed by Sean Valdivieso and edited by hbaCreate. The video gives a window into the incredible recording process that took place at Spacebomb Studios. The orchestra was headed by Trey Pollard who was responsible for both conducting and arranging. Drew Vandenburg produced and mixed the EP. Car Therapy Sessions will be available on vinyl in the fall and is available to pre-order now.
“I have a vivid memory of walking around London in 2018 listening to a mix of Jonny, which I had just written. I remember thinking “I want to perform this song with an orchestra”. I truly have had my heart set on it since then, always talking about it and figuring out how or when to make it happen,” says Webster.
“I chose these songs mostly for them being some of my favorites but also thinking about how different they would sound with an orchestra. Especially Cheers, I feel like that’s the one song people wouldn’t think I would choose but that’s exactly why I did. Trey also made all the arrangements so that they start off playing songs of mine that I didn’t end up choosing, which I thought was brilliant.
The recording experience was beautiful, I was truly fighting tears. I think I had actually even cried listening to the demos. I was put in a position where I could see the conductor as well as the producer, which I needed because I honestly couldn’t pick up on my cues sometimes even though I wrote the songs. I was so distracted in how beautiful the orchestra sounded I would forget to sing sometimes.”
On the EP, Webster reimagines three songs from her critically acclaimed 2021 release I Know I’m Funny, Haha and 2019’s Atlanta Millionaires Club. With the 24 piece orchestra backing her, the songs ‘Kind Of ‘, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Cheers’ take on a cinematic and glimmering new sheen. In addition to ‘Car Therapy’ she also shares a sprawling and emotional work- ‘Suite: Jonny,’ which combines fan-favorites ‘Jonny’ and ‘Jonny (Reprise).’ The two songs originally appeared on the Atlanta Millionaire’s Club tracklist, two different views on the same narrative. Here they’re presented together.
It’s remarkable how beautifully Webster’s work can take on this orchestral treatment. Like Cole Porter, or Judy Garland – her delicate and emotional delivery packs a gut punch when dramatized by the EP’s robust arrangements.
CAR THERAPY SESSIONS – TRACK LISTING:
- Kind Of (Type of Way)
- Sometimes (Overanalyze)
- Car Therapy
- Suite: Jonny
- Cheers (To You & Me)
I Know I’m Funny haha, the 23-year-old artist’s most recent release was also her most fully realized effort to date. Though she usually tackles album-making in a song-by-song approach, 2020 necessitated a more intensive recording process. Webster immediately knew the Athens-based players she wanted to record with and headed into the studio with producer/mixer Drew Vandenberg (Deerhunter, Of Montreal, Kishi Bashi). They assembled a band including Harold Brown on drums, Bryan Howard on bass, Nic Rosen on keys and Matt “Pistol” Stoessel on pedal steel – one of the most reliable and essential musical elements of Webster’s records.
A self-taught guitarist by elementary school, with a long tradition of bluegrass and country players in her family, Webster was bound to be a musician. At just 16 she released her debut album, Run & Tell. Like other teenage phenoms Jackson Browne and Laura Marling, it exhibited stunning lyrical and artistic clarity. Her Southern roots were obvious but Webster had more than country music inspiring her worldview – she was deeply embedded in the culture of her hometown, Atlanta. L’il Yachty was her classmate, she was sneaking out to see underground shows and fortuitously had befriended rapper/producer Ethereal while in High School. She went on to sign to Awful Records, making her label-mates with Father, Playboi Carti and Ethereal. To the outsider, an odd home but Webster shared the same weirdo art-kid ethos of her label mates – impossible to peg, endlessly experimenting, making shit, doing stuff, genre-fluid rule breakers.
Her 2017 self-titled release on Awful brought her enough notoriety to get her signed to Secretly Canadian, the home of ANOHNI, Porridge Radio, Whitney, Yoko Ono and more. Two years later, she released Atlanta Millionaires Club to widespread critical acclaim. “Few R&B albums have a pedal steel; few alt-country albums have a rap feature. Faye Webster’s Atlanta Millionaires Club somehow has all of the above. Even stranger, she manages to smooth these apparent contradictions into serene folk-pop with a mellow soul tinge. Webster is an anomaly, but her arty individualism represents an important common value,” said Pitchfork.
A multi-hyphenate talent, Webster also is a successful photographer who has shot campaigns for Killer Mike, Offset, D.R.A.M, Nike and other brands. She is a sometimes model and full-time yoyo enthusiast. Webster incorporates her yoyo skills into her live show. In 2020 Barack Obama included her single “Better Distractions,” on his playlist of favorite songs and she also released the single “In A Good Way.” Both songs appear on I Know I’m Funny haha.
