Valerie June has announced her first new album in four years. It will be called The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers, and art drops March 12th, 2021. Produced by Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys, John Legend) and Valerie June, the new album is sweeping and ambitious with earthy R&B production and a touch of psychedelia amidst its astral folk-pop orchestration, the pair arrived at a sound that is elegant and endlessly surprising. At the center is June’s spellbinding vocals and infectious sense of wonder that finds the Brooklyn-via-Memphis artist narrating the often-precarious journey to joyful possibility.
The album’s first official single "Call Me A Fool” is a marvelous preview of her upcoming LP, a delicious slice of Memphis soul that features Stax legend Carla Thomas on background vocals. Valerie shared the song’s sensuous day-dreamy video today with joint support across BET, CMT and MTV.
Wait, MTV is playing music videos again?
Commenting on the new album, June says:
“With this record, it finally became clear why I have this dream of making music. It’s not for earthly reasons of wanting to be awarded or to win anybody’s love—it’s because dreaming keeps me inquisitive and keeps me on that path of learning what I have to share with the world. When we allow ourselves to dream like we did when we were kids, it ignites the light that we all have within us and helps us to have a sort of magic about the way we live.”
The follow-up to her 2013 breakthrough, Pushin’ Against A Stone, and the widely adored The Order of Time — a 2017 effort that earned the admiration of Bob Dylan and landed on best-of-the-year lists — The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers is a transportive, deeply affecting work — a potent catalyst for those foolish enough to dream.