Alaska Reid announces new album, shares “Back To This”

Alaska Reid's 2020 EP Big Bunny was an introduction to an artist whose deadpan melancholy sat atop hazy guitars and an '80s Americana interested in highlighting the sleazy side of Los Angeles. The fuzzy production, with which Reid worked alongside PC Music's A.G. Cook, gave a spotlight to Reid - who had previously spent time making country music and playing in various bands - who duly beckoned listeners to come closer and hear the stories she had gathered along the way.

Today Reid announces details of debut album Disenchanter, due July 14, and shares new song "Back To This." The song was inspired by a hike in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, where Reid witnessed a group of forest service workers on a break. There's a wistful tone to the song as she observes the wildland firefighters and wonders what will become of her own life. "Running through these dreams, I want to go back to this," she sings. "Come with me, Can’t live if we don’t take chances." It's a song that caught somewhere between the safe embrace of nostalgia and the blurry excitement the future promises, a back-and-forth given weight by Reid's coolly detached vocals.

Speaking to The FADER via email, Reid elaborated on the idea behind the song. “It was late summer and they looked happy and dusty. It was like a painted reverie from a classical painting,” explains Reid. “I fantasize about other people’s lives, other people’s professions, and writing is a way I can approximate what it must be like to be someone else. So this song is about stumbling upon a scene in someone else’s life and wanting to be a part of it, but it’s also about wondering if I ever seemed as cool or as worthy as those smokejumpers did. I also had this idea of looking back at a photo and wondering why, at the time, I did not feel like the version of myself looking back in the photo.”