Tasha is back with a new album, because 2024's All This and So Much More was apparently not enough spring in her step. The singer-songwriter's follow-up, You Are Spring, is set to drop June 26 via Bayonet, and she's marking the occasion with two new songs - one of which, "Spring," features the all-star duo of L'Rain and Jamila Woods. The other, "Clarion," is also available for your listening pleasure, presumably without the help of a GPS.
Speaking of "Clarion," Tasha explains in a press release that the track came together during a long drive between New York and Chicago. "I repeatedly took note of a sign for the Pennsylvania town of Clarion and each time thought to myself, 'That would make a great name for a song,'" she says. "So I decided to make a song with that name. A song about coming and going, about wanting to change your life but not quite knowing how you're going to do it, but feeling suddenly on the edge of figuring it out. The goodness is coming, it's around the corner, you can feel it!" It's a testament to the creative process: sometimes a highway sign is all the inspiration you need.
Tasha, who recently relocated from Chicago to New York, decamped to Los Angeles to record the album with producer and SML member Gregory Uhlmann. As for "Spring," she reveals it was inspired by the Gwendolyn Brooks poem "To the Young Who Want To Die" - which is either deeply ironic or perfectly on-brand for a song titled after the season of rebirth. You decide.