THE NC-VIA NYC BAND RETURNS WIT BORN, BLESSED, GRATEFUL & ALIVE
“effortlessly blends Americana, country-rock, and a feel-good funk groove that keeps everything bouncing along with a jubilant feeling” — GLIDE
Nashville, TN: Yarn, headed by songwriter Blake Christiana, is back with a new album, Born, Blessed, Grateful, & Alive, out July 26 via Symphonic Distribution. It’s been eight years since the NC-via NYC roots rockers have treated fans to a new studio album. Born, Blessed, Grateful & Alive finds Christiana getting his groove back, and the title reflects accepting — and being grateful — for what you do have. Guests include members of Railroad Earth, Infamous Stringdusters, and others. The first single, “Heart So Hard,” is premiering today at Glide Magazine who writes that the “standout track finds Christiana and his band “effortlessly blending Americana, country-rock, and a feel-good funk groove.” “Heart So Hard” will be released on Friday, March 29 on all streaming services.
The songs on Born, Blessed, Grateful & Alive reflect the range of human experience. There’s the laconic country ballad, “I Want You,” which Christiana wrote with his long-time songwriting partner Shane Spaulding, that “loosely follows the plot of the ‘70s Willie Nelson movie, Honeysuckle Rose, about a married touring musician who finds his true love out on the road.” A road song, “Nomad Man,” glitters with ringing finger-picking and soaring steel runs as it evokes the loneliness and solitude of the moving from one place to another, while the soulful “These Words Alone,” with its driving Hammond B3 organ and gospel-inflected harmonies, sonically resembles Van Morrison’s later songs. The rollicking steel guitar on “Down at the Dancehall” introduces a twangy rambler that would be at home on any album by the Flying Burrito Brothers.
Yarn’s last studio album, This Is The Year, was released in 2014, followed by two collections of singles, Lucky 13 Vols. 1 and 2 (2018 and ’19). Christiana had moved from NYC to North Carolina and started a family, playing solo shows on the East Coast and trying to figure out what direction to take as an artist.
“This record came about when I wasn’t feeling good about my music, my band, or my career,” Christiana says. “I seriously considered scraping Yarn all together and just playing solo, by myself, for myself whenever the opportunity might present itself, even if that was never.”
Christiana had started performing solo, getting Yarn together for the “Cocaine Bear” in 2023, but it was a chance meeting with producer Damian Calcagne at his New Jersey studio that ultimately brought the band back together.
“We had zero expectations and zero inhibitions about any of what transpired that weekend in his studio,” Christiana shares. “It led to another week up at his studio a few weeks later. In between sessions I found myself writing like crazy.”
Ultimately, what was left of Yarn wound up tracking on this recording as well, that would be Yarn’s rhythm section, Robert Bonhomme and Rick Bugel. Also in the studio with us were Mike Robinson and Johnny Grubb (Railroad Earth), Andy Falco (Infamous Stringdusters), Mike Sivilli (Dangermuffin), Heather Hannah, Elliott Peck (Midnight North) and of course Damian Calcagne.
“It seemed right to keep the name Yarn going on this record, we’ve always been evolving, our sound hasforever been doing whatever it wants to do. That is Yarn and this is our next chapter.” For Christiana, it’s all about the song. “No one has any idea why we’re here, what we’re supposed to be doing here or what comes next, and there are very few things in this life to connect us to one another, other than the fact that we all don’t know these things,” he says. “I like to think our music could be one of the places where we can connect.”