Martha Wainwright is beginning again. The beguiling performer and songwriter returns with Love Will Be Reborn.
Not since 2012’s Come Home to Mama has a Martha Wainwright record been so full of original written material. Wainwright’s fifth studio album follows recent years of loneliness and clarity in search of optimism and joy.
The concert is held Philharmonic Hall, 1 October, 8pm. See here for tickets.
Much of Wainwright’s songwriting since 2016’s Goodnight City felt too raw. Wainwright wrote the first song – and what would become the title track – of the record a few years ago. It was a very dark time, but the positivity and luminosity of ‘Love Will Be Reborn’ signalled what was to come.
Martha Wainwright’s role as an artist has always been to embrace her wildness and sketch out her raw depth. This edge is what makes Wainwright uncompromisingly herself and continues to draw in an audience two decades on.
To begin again does not mean starting over – this process of rebirth honours the past to move forward. Love Will Be Reborn captures Wainwright’s heart in transition. In an effort to rise out of some painful depths, as she says much like a phoenix from the ashes of an existential twilight, Wainwright bore witness to what her heart endured to find a new joy once more.