Los Angeles songwriter, Blake Hazard, has announced a new solo album, The Eleanor Islands, which will be available in the US July 9. The Eleanor Islands is the first new music from Hazard since co-founding The Submarines with John Dragonetti in 2005. The pair released three acclaimed full-lengths between 2006-2011. In conjunction, Hazard has premiered the video for first single, “Colonnade”, directed by Simone Leuck, via SPIN. “The video plays with stereotypical representations of a female breakup and the glamorous leading lady in crisis,” said Lueck. “Referencing the theme of duality and an imaginary man from the opening verse, Blake exists in a parallel fantasy world inspired by cinema’s mid century melodrama, 1960s girls groups, Blake’s own style and the way she sometimes wears her hair.”
Largely penned in Hazard’s grandmother’s home in Pandanaram, MA, The Eleanor Islands is centered on this idea of reflection, of searching through the actions and potential actions that have brought someone to where they are now, of how two people, once integral to each other’s existence, can separate.
Interested in pairing the emotions in her songs with scrappy, live-sounding instrumentals and production, Hazard recorded the bulk of The Eleanor Islands with Sam Cohen (Apollo Sunshine/Yellowbirds) in his Brooklyn studio, capturing their urgency and emotive tenor. The intention was to re-record parts in Los Angeles, but Hazard was given the time to reflect when filming a cameo appearance in Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” - Hazard being the great-granddaughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Blake decided to stick with the sparse rawness of the demos, spending a couple of intensely focused weeks back in Brooklyn filling out the recordings with Cohen. She sent the tracks to Todor Kobakov in Toronto, who added delicate string arrangements, and later recorded additional vocals with Aaron Espinoza at The Ship and with Bryan Cook in Los Angeles. The resulting album is introspective and hushed, each song lending itself to an overall investigation into the dissolution of love and the idea of overwhelming restlessness.
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