This week's PBS Feature Album is The Second High, the seventh studio album from Australian singer-songwriter Liz Stringer.
Mirroring the scope and complexity of Stringer’s sensibilities and accomplishments as an artist, The Second High draws from Stringers’ wider influences of jazz, funk and soul, and takes her ability to dissect the minutiae of the human condition through song – and connect with her audience - to a new level. The album is redolent with motifs of self-actualisation, lessons learned, sharp and ever-relevant commentary on social issues, and a strong and consistent focus on justice and equality. Fuelled by keys-driven grooves ranging from poignant grand piano lamentations on 'When You Met Me', the Rhodes-led jazz odyssey of 'On the Level', hip-hop flavoured keys brightening the bottom-heavy and deeply funky 'The Second High', to virtuosic keys that dance between strings and soaring multi-layered vocals in 'To Survive', Stringer's seventh studio album is a fresh and engaging ride to a destination yet uncharted, even by Stringer’s standards – thrilling, stark and transformative. If 2021's First Time Really Feeling was an excavation, The Second High is an exorcism.
"The Second High was a record I wanted to make for a long time. I wanted to do something different, musically. I wanted to draw on my influences other than the folk guitar music that I’d had played to me as a kid and that had become my main form of musical expression. I wanted to play piano, my first instrument. I wanted to use my voice in a way I hadn’t before. And I wanted to feel free to sing about whatever I wanted to sing about," said Stringer.
The album sees Stringer's return to the fore since the critically lauded 2021 record First Time Really Feeling, which was named Album of the Week at RRR, PBS FM, and 2SER. The record was released in April 2021 through Courtney Barnett's Milk! Records / Remote Control Records and debuted at #14 on the ARIA Charts, earned the 2022 AIR Award for Best Blues and Roots Album and a place on the shortlist for APRA's Song of the Year 2022 for 'Dangerous'.
Tune in all this week to hear tracks from The Second High, and PBS Members have the chance to win a copy of the album on CD: simply email your name and membership number to before midnight Sunday April 13.
Not a PBS Member? Join now!
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING THIS WEEK
Kellee Green - 'River To Sea'
Polygonia - 'Twisted Colours'
Pugilist & Tamen - 'Conquer'
Kathleen Halloran - 'Find Me Again'
OjiAji - 'Diamonds'
Cantrips - 'See You Soon'
Jenny Hval - 'The artist is absent' (89 second rewrite)
DJ Python & Isabella Lovestory - 'Besos Robados'
Shelf Nunny - 'Stayed Inside Instead Of Going To The Show' feat. sim1 bby [IKSRE Remix}
Faten Kanaan - 'Sidequest'
