The scene: December, 2021. Drizzly grey evenings. Doom. Covid. Bleurgh. Something really compelling started to be transmitted into my living room one evening. A change to the normal programming on BBC Radio 6 Music. Ezra Furman, an artist I’d long admired was standing in for Marc Riley. I had no idea what delights I was in for. These were to be my favourite radio shows of all time. Her mix of personal anecdotes, especially of her close musical community, her command of pop music history and the plain fact that the mix of music selected just happened to align perfectly with my own taste was nothing short of captivating. I listened every night and bemoaned the second she was off air. Marc Riley – we appreciate everything you do, but Furman needs her own show yesterday.
Luckily, she has been using the rest of her time doing what she does best and creating the music that we all love her for – the career in which has brought her the depth of knowledge and passion that made those radio shows so incredible.
The new record All Of Us Flames comes out 26th August via Bella Union, and unveils the cathartic lead single, “Forever In Sunset”. Produced by John Congleton (Girl in Red – Who also has a new video out, St. Vincent, Swans, Okkervil River), All of Us Flames unleashes Furman’s songwriting in an open, vivid sound whose boldness heightens the music’s urgency.
All of Us Flames is the third instalment in a trilogy of albums, beginning with 2018’s Springsteen-inflected road saga Transangelic Exodus and continuing with the punk rock fury of 2019’s Twelve Nudes.
Furman has a knack for zeroing in on the light that sparks when struggling people find each other and ease each other’s course. “I started to think of trans women as a secret society across the world: scattered everywhere, but so obviously bound together, both in being vulnerable and having a shared vision to change a fundamental building block of patriarchal society,” she says. “I‘ve been building my world of queer pals, and it feels like we’re forming a gang.”
Much of the album was written during the first lockdown of the pandemic and it was this “gang” that informed Furman’s experience of that time. We were all realising a lot more about how the communities around us really could function, needed to function. A friend of Furman’s who stayed with her during this time talked of a sense of strange readiness she felt for this chaos: “we queers know what to do: we take care of each other, we help each other out, we have a network of support for the crises we know will hit us from time to time.” Furman said her house was a sanctuary of sorts for her friends at this time and so she found herself needing to take long drives to seek solitude. She would park in arbitrary quiet spots around Massachusetts, and began to write this new album. The songs that came flowed toward ideas of communality and networks of care, systems of survival cultivated by necessity among people who have been historically deprived of them. “This is a first person plural album,” Furman says. “It’s a queer album for the stage of life when you start to understand that you are not a lone wolf, but depend on finding your family, your people, how you work as part of a larger whole. I wanted to make songs for use by threatened communities, and particularly the ones I belong to: trans people and Jews.” With Furman’s widened focus, All of Us Flames paints transformative connections among people who unsettle the stories power tells to sustain itself.
Following previous singles “Book Of Our Names” and “Point Me Toward The Real”, “Forever In Sunset” peers past the scorch of the apocalypse into a vision of collective survival, tracing the ways outcast people can make each other real through mutual belief – “people who have been through a personal apocalypse or two have something to teach them. The world doesn’t end, shit just happens and if we don’t die we have to take care of each other.” – Ezra Furman on “Forever In Sunset”. The synth-streaked rallying call is presented alongside a gorgeous and tender video directed by Noel Paul (Bat for Lashes, Father John Misty)
Ezra Furman – “Forever In Sunset“
Tour Dates:
Ezra Furman has announced more dates for her 2022 international tour adding four UK shows in November including performances at The Roundhouse in London and The Ritz in Manchester.
Thu. May 19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom *
Sat. May 21 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall *
Mon. May 23 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile *
Tue. May 24 – Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre *
Wed. May 25 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom *
Thu. May 26 – Boise, ID @ Visual Arts Collective *
Sat. May 28 – Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre *
Mon. May 30 – Des Moines, IA @ Gas Lamp *
Tue. May 31 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line *
Wed. Jun. 1 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall *
Thu. Jun. 9 – Somerville, MA @ Crystal Ballroom (Ezra Solo)
Thu. Jul. 21 – Valencia, ES @ Diversity Festival
Sun. Jul. 24 – Hertfordshire, UK @ Standon Calling Festival
Sun. Aug. 14 – Des Moines, IA @ Val Air Ballroom ^
Tues. Aug. 16 – Milwaukee, WI @ UWM Panther Arena ^
Wed. Aug. 17 – Indianapolis, IN @ TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park ^
Thu. Aug. 18 – Crickhowell, UK @ Green Man Festival
Tues. Aug 23 – Edinburgh, UK @ Edinburgh International Festival
Mon. Sep. 12 – Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rosa !
Tue. Sep. 13 – Toronto, ON @ Rec Room !
Wed. Sep. 14 – Detroit, MI @ The Loving Touch !
Thu. Sep. 15 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr Small’s !
Fri. Sep. 16 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar !
Sun. Sep. 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts !
Mon. Sep. 19 – Providence, RI @ Fete Ballroom !
Tue. Sep. 20 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair !
Wed. Sep. 21 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall !
Thu. Sep. 22 – Dover, DE @ Firefly Festival
Mon. Oct. 31 – Bruges, BE @ Cactus Club
Tue. Nov. 1 – Paris, FR @ Le Trabendo
Wed. Nov. 2 – Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vredenburg
Thu. Nov. 3 – Hamburg, DE @ Uebel & Gefährlich
Sat. Nov. 5 – Cologne, DE @ Kulturkirche
Sun. Nov. 6 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaaal Kreutzberg
Mon. Nov. 7 – Prague, CZ @ Roxy
Tue. Nov. 8 – Vienna, AT @ Arena Wien
Wed. Nov. 9 – Graz, AT @ Dom Im Berg
Sat. Nov. 12 – Fribourg, CH @ Fri-Son
Sun. Nov. 13 – Munich, DE @ Freiheitshalle
Mon. Nov. 14 – Frankfurt, DE @ Zoom
Wed. Nov. 16 – Brighton, UK @ St Georges Church
Thu. Nov. 17 – London, UK @ The Roundhouse
Sat. Nov. 19 – Birmingham, UK @ The Mill
Mon. Nov. 21 – Manchester, UK @ O2 Ritz
* w/ Grace Cummings
^ w/ Jack White
! w/ Art Moore
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