Following the release of her million-selling debut Seasons of My Soul, Rumer retreated from her home of Herne Hill, south London, to the musical mecca of Laurel Canyon, in the Hollywood Hills – more specifically, to a trailer which back on to a tumbledown villa. She worked with Rob Shirakbari, the musical director for Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick and Daryl Hall’s live band. (It was a pairing so harmonious that Rumer and Shirakbari were engaged while working on Into Colour.)
The result is an album with the easy-listening romance of her former sound, as well as nods towards vintage soul and disco. Lyrically, it touches on darker themes. Dangerous is about Rumer’s fear of returning to making music after four years away to deal with her bipolar disorder; You Just Don’t Know People is “a direct response to losing faith in friends and battling the growth of cynicism”; Play Your Guitar is a “quietly subversive call to arms for struggling musicians”; and Butterfly, perhaps her most honest song yet, is about a miscarriage. “When I imagined Into Colour, I didn’t know what it was, but it felt like a hopeful place to walk towards,” she says. “In this record you can hear me picking through the debris and going through each emotion.”
Into Colour is released on 10 November. Listen to a stream of the album below, and tell us what you think in the comments thread.
