runo plum – patching
runo plum has been writing and quietly sharing bedroom dispatches of her intricate folk for a half-decade. The Minneapolis-based singer and songwriter steadily caught the ears of a widening circle of listeners during the pandemic years, and soon began independently releasing a series of singles and EPs that landed her tours supporting Angel Olsen, Searows and Hovvdy, and recently saw her booked for Pitchfork London and Paris in the fall.
Last month, runo announced her signing to Winspear (Wishy, Slow Pulp, Teethe), and today she is back to announce her debut LP, an album called patching that the label will release on November 14th.
The intimate debut LP gracefully captures the contraction, expansion and release of an intense period of emotional repair, in soft-edged, radiating indie rock. Inspired by a breakup and subsequent healing process, patching is a sonic journey as much as an emotional one. Whether it be longing for friendship, social anxiety, hypochondria spirals, or coming home to a box of stuff from your ex, the album oscillates from rumination to little glimmers of joy to closure and eventually, falling in love all over again.
Together with collaborator, instrumentalist and girlfriend Noa Francis, runo and her co-producer Lutalo recorded the album in a cabin in rural Vermont over the course of two weeks. Centering the honeyed, time-worn timbre of a centenarian acoustic guitar and the easeful warmth of runo’s voice, the trio began putting together the pieces one by one. “It was just flowing,” runo says. “Every song is an emotional fragment during my healing process patched together into one project, while I was also patching myself together in real time. You can feel the damage, but also the repair. The slowing down in order to move forward, and the dreaming of a time where I’m finally free from the dread.”
To mark today’s announce, runo is sharing the album’s lead single “sickness”.
Buoyed by a conversational, propulsive melody, album opener “Sickness” deals in unhealthy cycles and mundanity. Underbellied by anxiety, it soars and sears, piecing day to day tableaus together with runo’s knack for introspection.
runo says of the track:
“This song could be taken in many ways, literally or metaphorically. It’s about falling ill of many kinds, the common cold, perhaps lovesickness, but whatever it may be: you heal through it. This was the first song we worked on, and it came together really seamlessly.”
Tour Dates
11/1 – Amsterdam, NL @ London Calling Festival
11/2 – Berlin, DE @ Neue Zukuft
11/3 – Hamburg, DE @ Aalhaus
11/5 – Ghent, BE @ Big Next (Trefpunt)
11/6 – Luxembourg, LU @ Rotondes
11/7 – Paris, FR @ Pitchfork Paris
11/8 – London, UK @ Pitchfork London
11/10 – Bristol, UK @ Thekla
11/11 – London, UK @ Moth Club
11/12 – Brighton, UK @ Dust
11/14 – Sheffield, UK @ Hallamshire Hotel
11/15 – Leeds, UK @ Live at Leeds
#runo_plum