Shana Cleveland, the frontwoman for the California-based surf rock band La Luz, has announced a new solo album, Manzanita, which is set to drop on March 10.
Videos by American Songwriter
The album is named after a small evergreen tree endemic to California, which has strong medicinal properties
To celebrate the news, Cleveland has shared the LP’s debut single and accompanying music video, “Faces in the Firelight,” which fans can check out here below along with the new album’s tracklist.
Cleveland says the new single is addressed to both her son (written while he was in utero) and her life partner, Will Sprott (Shannon and the Clams). “The song is about watching Will tend to a huge burn pile that was still going long after dark and realizing that out there in the dark field, he looked like the ultrasound image we had on our fridge, Cleveland says. “I was thinking that the greatest act of love might be to wait for someone. To say, ‘I’ll be here whenever you’re done, whenever you’re ready.’”
(For more with Cleveland, American Songwriter chatted with her about being a mom, HERE.)
“We created a fantasy realm in my backyard to visualize the sweet strangeness of the time and place when I wrote these songs: pregnant and often alone in the wilderness,” Cleveland, who says she’s recently discovered a new affinity for nature, in part, due to her recent pregnancy, says of the video.
She adds, “Part of moving to California for me was living somewhere where writing outside was possible all year … I think of this as a Springtime record. In California, Spring is the season when nature comes inside. The house is suddenly full of weird bugs. Everything is blindingly in bloom.
“The songs were all written while I was pregnant (side A) or shortly after my son’s birth in that weird everything-has-quietly-but-monumentally-shifted state (side B),” she adds.
Pre-order Manzanita through Hardly Art . Select independent retailers in North America, the U.K., and Europe will receive the limited Maroon (colored) vinyl.
Check out the new single and the tracklist below.
Manzanita Tracklisting
1. A Ghost
2. Bloom
3. Faces in the Firelight
4. Mystic Mine
5. Light on the Water
6. Quick Winter Sun
7. Bonanza Freeze
8. Gold Tower
9. Babe
10. Ten Hour Drive Through West Coast Disaster
11. Evil Eye
12. Mayonnaise
13. Sheriff of the Salton Sea
14. Walking Through Morning Dew
Photo by Kristin Cofer / Grand Stand Media
