Lael Neale uproot­ed her­self from her idyl­lic rur­al life in Vir­ginia and relo­cat­ed to Los Ange­les – and it’s a move she has made more than once, due to lock­down. Such an extreme shift has pro­voked feel­ings of alien­ation and dis­con­nec­tion. Lael’s new album Alto­geth­er Stranger, her third with Sub Pop, delves into and tries to process this dis­ori­en­tat­ing expe­ri­ence, and it is not the only polar­i­sa­tion that she explores in her new work: themes of city ver­sus nature and iso­la­tion ver­sus soci­ety also run through the album. As she sings in the hyp­not­ic, Motorik-paced open­ing track, “Wild waters are call­ing to me, we bathed here before when the waters were free…”

Los Ange­les, with its free­ways cross­ing the land­scape and cease­less move­ment of peo­ple and cars on the move, serves as fer­tile ground for Lael’s poet­ic imag­i­na­tion. Third track Down on the Free­way dropped last month as a taster of Alto­geth­er Stranger (review here); the accom­pa­ny­ing video sees Lael, dressed in a mir­rored jump­suit, tra­vers­ing those traf­fic-clogged LA streets. She dips into a door­way and enters a world of her imag­i­na­tion, where she finds her­self direct­ing a run­way show. But this is no design­er cat­walk, this is a cel­e­bra­tion of fun and lib­er­a­tion where the mod­els show­case a play­ful array of vin­tage-inspired out­fits. I asked Lael at the album launch about the video and she says the cat­walk show is some­thing she’d dreamed about doing since she was a child. Things cul­mi­nate in a par­ty scene where Lael con­sumes a QR-cod­ed tab, launch­ing her into a mys­te­ri­ous new dimension.

Alto­geth­er Stranger was writ­ten and record­ed in the ear­ly morn­ing qui­et of Los Ange­les and styl­is­ti­cal­ly cov­ers a wide breadth of gen­res from garage rock nurs­ery rhymes and cre­ation myths to Motorik dance dirges and soli­tary Omni­chord meditations. 

It’s a cap­ti­vat­ing album, replete with Lael’s unusu­al phras­ing, del­i­cate vocals and soft har­monies. Tracks range from the dreamy coun­try twang of All Good Things will Come to Pass, to haunt­ing Sleep Through The Long Night accom­pa­nied by the calm­ing hum of the Omni­chord. The final dit­ty There From Here sees the singer at the air­port, swept into the tide of peo­ple on the move (there’s a too-famil­iar image of the duty-free walk with its “per­fume too sweet …and liqueur stacked neat”) as she heads off to a space where she can breathe. How­ev­er a sense of melan­choly lingers as she remains “sad as the last unsold souvenir”.

The emo­tion­al core of the album is Tell Me How to be Here – a haunt­ing cen­tre­piece shot through with Lael’s dis­place­ment anx­i­ety as she express­es her sleep­less­ness while the vin­tage-sound­ing notes of the Omni­chord rip­ple with woozy chords. 

The album is her third col­lab­o­ra­tion with pro­duc­er Guy Blakeslee who helps expand the tonal palette while stay­ing true to Neale’s com­mit­ment to raw imme­di­a­cy and hand-made inti­ma­cy of home record­ing.

Alto­geth­er Stranger: A Full Album Visu­al Accom­pa­ni­ment Short Film Pre­miered Thurs­day, 1st May

Alto­geth­er Stranger pre­order on CD/LP/All DSPs from Sub Pop. LP pre­orders megamart.subpop.com (North Amer­i­ca), MM2 (UK/EU), your local record store and at Neale’s live shows lim­it­ed Laven­der (NA) and Magen­ta (UK/EU) vinyl.
Spe­cial edi­tion: Rough Trade UK/EU on Cream White vinyl 

Tour Dates
Fri. May 02 – Lon­don, UK – Rough Trade East
Sat. May 10 – Dublin, IE – Workman’s Cel­lar
Sun. May 11 – Belfast, UK – McHughs
Tue. May 27 – Bris­tol, UK – The Louisiana
Wed. May 28 – Lon­don, UK – Omeara
Thu. May 29 – Man­ches­ter, UK – YES Base­ment
Fri. May 30 – New­cas­tle, UK – Cum­ber­land Arms
Sat. May 31 – Glas­gow, UK – Hug & Pint