LA VITA NUOVA

2020 release. Ardent, anglophilic, anachronistic, luddite/maximalist and baroque, La Vita Nuova was written as an elegy to desire. Upon its completion it became a conjuring. Candid and passionate, Maria McKee has quite simply, had a beatific awakening and in a crescendo of prose, La Vita Nuova unlocks this story, sketching out a momentous and transformative time in her life that started decades ago when she sang in her living room by the fire with her older brother, the late, great musical innovator Bryan MacLean, co-founder, (along with Arthur Lee), of the seminal LA band Love. Along the way she retooled punk and country as the lead singer of pioneering Americana band Lone Justice, released a string of evocative and eclectic solo records, wrote chart topping hits and inspired the devotion of a loyal cultish fan base before seemingly disappearing Its been thirteen years since her last studio album Late December which was released in 2007. La Vita Nuova is an homage to Dantes opus on unrequited love. Though the unconscious impetus for making this album was to process the shock of one of McKees most prodigious personal challenges thus far, the dissolution and reinvention of her marriage, the songs are progressive and lyrically dense. The production is orchestral and operatic and takes it cues from McKees lexicon of icons - John Cale, Scott Walker and David Bowie. And so, its a conversation that demands a level of deep concentration. One may need to listen more than once to connect with the confessional narrative that is held in subtext and to understand that within the lines of prose the muse, or Beatrice of the album is also a heart-breaking phantom of McKees younger, idealistic self. And a metaphor for youth in general.