When We Were Looking

by Louisa Stancioff

Overview

After growing up with music and touring for a few years in a band with her cousin, Maine native Louisa Stancioff set out on her own. Moving around the country to places as distant as Alaska and Southern California, she worked odd jobs while building up her guitar skills and writing songs. When she eventually recorded her debut album in Maine with producer/multi-instrumentalist Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Lake Street Dive), the songs she had in hand were steeped in heartbreak and uncertainty. Stylistically, the album, When We Were Looking, manifests a merger of alt-country, indie folk, and dreamy psychedelia, all behind a feathery, doleful voice that takes up residence in the clouds. After a count-off, Stancioff's airy vocals are introduced with the line "I know you said you're sorry" on "Gold," an ambling, strummed-guitar number with passing washes of synthesizer, echoey piano, and distant guitar. A rhythm section and harmony vocals appear on and off in the second half of the song, which ends in a cappella fashion with the quiet understanding that she gave more than she got in the relationship. That song's light twang, dusty atmosphere, poignant resignation, and cinematic qualities persist throughout an album that leans into psychedelic country-rock territory on the epic, key-shifting "Nobody's Watching" ("You always said you wanted nothing/Now I see you want it all to yourself"), introduces fiddle (by Stancioff) on the gloomy, abandonment-themed "Emma," and seems to lift the sultry riffs of Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane" (or, more precisely, Cowboy Junkies' "Sweet Jane") on "Cigarette," which confronts an ex with, "Heard you've got a new girlfriend/She's really hot/So why are you looking at me like you used to?" With the pastel- instead of gray-tinted "End of Your Song," Stancioff closes the album with a lilting tribute to an ending that has yet to be written, while also announcing the arrival of an artist fully formed. ~ Marcy Donelson

Product Details

Release Date:	10/25/2024
Label:	Yep Roc Records
UPC:	0634457191334
Rank:	133223

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Louisa Stancioff   Primary Artist,Guitar (Electric),Guitar (Acoustic),Bass (Electric),Fiddle,Voices,Farfisa Organ
Daniel Kelly   Bass (Electric),Guitar (Electric)
Sam Kassirer   Drums,Organ,Piano,Mellotron,Synthesizer,Farfisa Organ,Fender Rhodes,Organ (Hammond)
David Kelly   Drums
Kevin O'Connell   Bass,Drums

Technical Credits

Zackary Leavitt   Composer
Sophia Corinne   Composer
Sam Kassirer   Mixing,Engineer,Producer
Dan Cardinal   Mastering
Colin Lester Fleming   Assistant Engineer
Kevin O'Connell   Assistant Engineer
Louisa Stancioff   Composer