This Bitter Earth

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Veronica Swift’s second album for Mack Avenue is an eclectic, unforgettable delight, with the singer’s out-and-out virtuosity perfectly matched by a band that can take the music in any direction... — Jazzwise, March 2021, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 19th Mar 2021
Catalogue No: MAC1177
Label: Mack Avenue
Length: 61 minutes

Jazzwise

Editor's Choice

March 2021
Presto Recording of the Week

19th March 2021
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2021

Clyde Otis: This Bitter Earth

Work length4:27

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Veronica Swift

Lee Adams, Charles Strouse: How Lovely to Be a Woman

Work length4:10

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Veronica Swift

Rodgers, R: You've Got to Be Carefully Taught

Work length5:16

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Veronica Swift

Rodgers, R: The King and I: Getting To Know You

Work length6:19

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Veronica Swift

Gershwin: The Man I Love

Work length4:50

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$1.75

Veronica Swift

Bob Dorough: You're the Dangerous Type

Work length4:25

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Veronica Swift

Robert Sherman, Richard Sherman: Trust in Me

Work length5:19

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Veronica Swift

Carole King, Gerry Goffin: He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)

Work length2:11

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Veronica Swift

Bart: As Long As He Needs Me

Work length4:55

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Veronica Swift

Jimmy Van Heusen, Sammy Cahn: Everybody Has the Right to Be Wrong

Work length2:53

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Veronica Swift

Russ Columbo, Clarence Gaskill, Leo Robin: Prisoner of Love

Work length4:16

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Veronica Swift

Dave Frishberg: The Sports Page

Work length6:21

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Veronica Swift

Amanda Palmer: Sing

Work length5:44

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Veronica Swift

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Recording of the Week, Veronica Swift - This Bitter Earth

19th March 2021

Vocalist Veronica Swift's second record with Mack Avenue tackles some much wider-spread themes such as sexism, racism and misinformation on her excellent follow-up to 2019's Confessions.

Whereas Veronica Swift’s 2019 Mack Avenue Records debut, Confessions, contained songs that played out like pages from her personal diary, on the captivating follow-up, This Bitter Earth, she flips by crafting an ingenious song cycle that tackles sexism ('How Lovely to Be a Woman'), domestic abuse ('He Hit Me'), environmental issues, racism, xenophobia ('You Have To Be Carefully Taught'), and the dangers of fake news ('The Sports Page'). The singer-songwriter gathered material that covers multiple genres, including jazz, American musicals, and contemporary indie-rock fortifying her position as a leading force in genre-bending song presentation.

“I want this album have two separate approaches,” states Swift. "I wanted to start with women’s place in society now and how it's changing. During the second half, I wanted to address other ailments in the world, whether it’s racism or fake news. But I don’t take any political stances. I’m very clear with my audience that as an artist I just want to address certain issues as an outsider looking in.”

Reviews

March 2021

Veronica Swift’s second album for Mack Avenue is an eclectic, unforgettable delight, with the singer’s out-and-out virtuosity perfectly matched by a band that can take the music in any direction they please.

April 2021

Veronica Swift is a woman of many voices, and she uses every one of them to refract a dizzying kaleidoscope of moods on This Bitter Earth, the follow-up to 2019’s Confessions. As on that earlier work, Swift digs deep into the American songbook to reveal new, often surprising truths.

19th March 2021

Her latest recording is undoubtedly more serious than Confessions, Swift’s much heavier choice of lyrical content also reflected in some of the less personal subject matters; her versions of ‘You Have to Be Carefully Taught’ (from South Pacific) and Dave Frishberg’s ‘The Sports Page’ shining a light on racism and fake news respectively, topics just as pertinent nowadays as when both of these tunes were originally written in the 50s and 70s.

This Bitter Earth

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