Today, Stella Donnelly presents “Flood,” the title track/video from her forthcoming album, out August 26th on Secretly Canadian.
Directed by Donnelly, Nick Mckk and Grace Goodwin, the accompanying “Flood” video centers on an idyllic summer day — or at least Donnelly’s idiosyncratic version of one. “This clip is pure ridiculous play, like going to your grandparents house where you and your cousins would get up to the most elaborate film projects,” Donnelly says. “We always ran around the house making home movies that tried to re-enact other films and much like this clip here, they always ended in some sort of minor catastrophe. With this video for ‘Flood’ we have made a very feeble attempt at recreating the legendary OK GO video clip for ‘Here it Goes Again’ and we failed gloriously.”
Of “Flood,” Donnelly says: “This song feels like a sad little adventure. I wrote it in the dark depths of a Melbourne winter lockdown where it had been raining for consecutive weeks. Everyone around me was falling into their own version of depression at different times. It felt like a flood of trauma yet at the same time, we were given an opportunity of time to work through stuff that we’d been distracting ourselves with for so long prior to the pandemic.”
This fall, Donnelly will embark on a world tour, including stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Brooklyn, and a plethora of dates across Europe and the UK. Full dates are listed below and tickets are on sale now.
Stella Donnelly Tour Dates
Mon. Jun. 27 – Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vrendenburg *
Tue. Jun. 28 – Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vrendenburg *
Thu. Jun. 30 – Berlin, DE @ Verti Music Hall *
Sun. Jul. 3 – Six-Fours-les-Plages, FR @ Pointu Festival
Thur. Jul. 7 – Biscay, ES @ BBK Bilbao Festival
Sat. Jul. 23 – Byron Bay, AU @ Splendour In The Grass
Sun. Sept. 11 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Mon. Sept. 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda
Tue. Sept. 13 – San Francisco, CA @ Independent
Thu. Sept. 15 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Fri. Sept. 16 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
Sat. Sept. 17 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
Wed. Sept. 21 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe
Thu. Sept. 22 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
Fri. Sept. 23 – Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
Sat. Sept. 24 – Toronto, ON @ Longboat Hall
Mon. Sept. 26 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom
Wed. Sept. 28 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
Fri. Sept. 30 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
Today, Australian musician Stella Donnelly returns, announcing her sophomore album, Flood, out August 26th on Secretly Canadian, and a world tour (on sale Friday, May 13th). In conjunction, she presents the album’s lead single/video, “Lungs.”
During her time in the rainforests of Australia’s Bellingen, one of the many cities she lived throughout her time writing this album, Donnelly took to birdwatching. By paying closer attention to the natural world around her, she was “able to lose that feeling of anyone’s reaction to me. I forgot who I was as a musician, which was a humbling experience of just being; being my small self.” Reconnecting with the “small self” allowed Donnelly to tap into creative wells she didn’t know existed; she wrote 43 tracks as she moved out of Bellingen and around the country. “I had so many opportunities to write things in strange places,” Donnelly remarks, having passed through Fremantle, Williams, Guilderton, Margaret River and Melbourne. “I often had no choice about where I was. There’s no denying that not being able to access your family with border closures, it zooms in on those parts of your life you care about.”
Donnelly says. “Dynamics between old best friends, or dynamics between housemates, or a relationship where the two people are broken up and haven’t spoken in years. I like getting into the mind of someone who we’ve all been at some point.” This interest expresses itself in a unique way on the record as Donnelly regularly “plays dress-up,” adopting different faces and personas to help her distill her truest self. In “Lungs” she writes from the point of view of a child whose family has just been evicted.
Donnelly co-directed the video for “Lungs” with Duncan Wright. She comments, “Very loosely based on the Banded Stilts of my album cover, the character I play in red is a wobbly adult, doing their best with their new set of legs and responsibilities, trying to make it look easy but very much on unsteady ground. I wanted this video to celebrate the child, firm in their footholds, intimidatingly honest, not to be messed with, they are the strength and power of this video no matter how much I try to assert myself as the boss. The clip is choreographed by Donnelly’s childhood friends, sisters Billie, Nikki, and Stevie Tanner, who run the Tanner Dance Academy. “They weaved so much beauty in their choreography and also let the dancers apply their own take to the movements which really shines through in the static shots. Grace Goodwin who produced, set-designed and costumed the clip was integral in creating my stilted character and creating a point of difference between that and my child self.”
Stella Donnelly Tour Dates
Sun. Sept. 11 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Mon. Sept. 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda
Tue. Sept. 13 – San Francisco, CA @ Independent
Thu. Sept. 15 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Fri. Sept. 16 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
Sat. Sept. 17 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
Wed. Sept. 21 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe
Thu. Sept. 22 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
Fri. Sept. 23 – Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary
Sat. Sept. 24 – Toronto, ON @ Longboat Hall
Mon. Sept. 26 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom
Wed. Sept. 28 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
Fri. Sept. 30 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
Sat. Oct. 1 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd
Tue. Nov. 1 – Leeds, UK @ Wardrobe
Wed. Nov. 2 – Glasgow @ Mono
Thu. Nov. 3 – Manchester @ Band On The Wall
Fri. Nov. 4 – Dublin, IE @ Whelan’s
Sun. Nov. 6 – Liverpool, UK @ Zanzibar
Tue. Nov. 8 Nottingham, UK @ Metronome
Wed. Nov. 9 – Bristol, UK @ Thekla
Thu. Nov. 10 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton
Sat. Nov. 12 – Cardiff, UK @ The Gate
Sun. Nov. 13 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare and Hounds
Mon. Nov. 14 – Brighton, UK @ Komedia
Wed. Nov. 16 – Paris, FR @ FMR
Thu. Nov. 17 – Cologne, DE @ Artheatre
Fri. Nov. 18 – Brussels, BE @ Rotonde – Botanique
Sat. Nov. 19 – Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet
Mon. Nov. 21 – Hamburg, DE @ Molotow Skybar
Tue. Nov. 22 – Copenhagen, DK @ Hotel Cecil
Thu. Nov. 24 – Berlin, DE @ Badehaus
Fri. Nov. 25 – Munich, DE @ Strom w/ Julia Jacklin
Spin Magazine