Aimee Mann Opens Up About New LP ‘Mental Illness’

Mike Wass | March 1, 2017 1:47 am

Aimee Mann will release her first album in five years on March 31. It’s called Mental Illness, a title the singer/songwriter explains in a new making-of video. “A friend of mine was asking me what my new record was about and I said, ‘Oh you know, it’s my usual songs about mental illness,’ and they said, ‘Well, you should call it Mental Illness,'” she recounts. “Which was meant as a joke, but once they said it, it was so perverse but accurate that I really could not consider anything else.”

What can we expect sonically? After dabbling in a (slightly) more upbeat pop sound on 2012’s Charmer, Aimee is keeping things simple this time around. “I tried to keep this record really acoustic,” she explains. “I was listening to a lot of easy listening records from the ’70s where they would have these banks of very soft ‘oohs’ and I really liked that. You know maybe the starkness of one acoustic guitar but a multiplicity of diaphanous ‘oohs.'” A good example of that is lead single “Goose Snow Cone.”

“The first song on the record, ‘Goose Snow Cone,’ I was on tour in Ireland and it was snowing and cold and depressing outside, and I saw on Instagram a picture of my cat friend Goose — his little face looked like a white snowball. Just looking at his face made me feel very homesick, so then the song morphed into this musing on feeling lonely and homesick.” How deliciously depressing. Watch Aimee’s fascinating making-of video below.

Are you excited for Aimee’s new album? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter!

Tags: