Released on Friday, Meg Washington’s Gem is her first album of original material in five years and is this week’s Feature Album on 8CCC! Titled using her name backwards, Gem is a country-tinged record of psychedelic folk songs, and marks a turning point for the platinum-selling artist, released independently through her own label, Batflower Records, in partnership with ORiGiN Recordings.
From her website: “It’s been a creative oasis, a beautiful and isolated dreamscape crafted with my friend and collaborator, Ben Edgar. These songs formed as notes that I wrote to myself, a journal I kept while considering the question of music in these times. The answer, when it came, was simple. I sing because it’s in my nature. In every sense, this record is about nature. Human nature, animal nature, and my own nature as an artist, parent and person. We took a simple approach to production.”
Washington said, “This album is a message in a bottle; a record detailing the years I spent quietly alone on a deserted tropical island. Or was that a dream? It came from looking inward. It’s about finding something very precious within yourself.” Rolling Stone