Juliette Lewis: New Album Produced by Volta’s Omar

JULIETTE LEWIS Set to Release New Album Terra Incognita
Grammy award winner Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of Mars Volta Joins Juliette in the Studio

Juliette Lewis

After five years, two full length albums and countless high profile tours and festival gigs, including The Leeds Festival, Reading and Lollapalooza, Juliette Lewis is ready to unveil her new album Terra Incognita, scheduled for release this Spring. With an exciting new sound and a significantly diverse collection of songs, Lewis decided to form a different band to capture her whole new groove and launch this next musical project under a different name: Juliet Lewis & The New Romantiques. Instrumental in creating the sound for this new record is the album’s producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, leader of The Mars Volta.

“Because this album is so sonically different than anything I’ve done before and captures many flavors of my emotional life and voice, it needed an entirely new name,” declares Lewis. “Terra Incognita means unknown territory – and that’s where I wanted to go musically. The guitars are more wild and atmospheric. The groove is dark and deep and allows for a lot of sonic contrasts. It took me five years to really cut my teeth both as a performer and as a songwriter and I wanted to break all the habits I’d gotten used to and let songs develop out of a groove or simple piano notes and melody. In Omar I found a producer who understood all these facets and who could really unearth and interpret this musical identity. He blows my mind on many levels. It’s been a truly liberating and radical experience.”

“Everything she’s feeling, it’s just right there for you,” said Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of the recording. “It’s just honest. It’s her. All the music encapsulates her and it’s driven by her, and it’s made for her.”

Juliette and Omar met while both on tour at the Fugi Rock Festival in Japan in 2007 and soon bonded over their love of Fellini movies and the relationship between drama, visual images and songwriting. Together they have translated her ideas into an emotionally guttural and ultimately melodic and unpredictable, new sound. There is a deep undercurrent on the entire record of contrasting themes; romance and tragedy, dreams and disillusionment. Her vocal performances showcase a remarkably dynamic range going from haunting to soulful and roaring.

Lewis wrote most of the 11 tracks with long time friend and musician Chris Watson over the past year and at home on piano using a tape recorder. She then recorded the album in between both of her and Omar’s tours at the end of 2008 at Rodriguez-Lopez’s studios in Brooklyn, NY and Guadalajara, Mexico. The record was mixed by the legendary Rich Cosey (Nine Inch Nails, Muse, Foo Fighters).

Juliette & The New Romantiques will be announcing additional album details and tour news in the coming weeks. Tour stops will include SXSW, club shows and festival dates, which follow on the heels of her storied live history that has taken her music all across the world from Europe to Japan to Turkey, Australia, North America and Canada.

Juliet Lewis and The New Romantiques tour dates
03.18 South by Southwest Music & Film Festival 2009 at Emo’s Austin, Texas
03.28 San Diego IndieFest V San Diego, California
06.05 Rock & Ring AM Festival in Germany Nurburgring/Eifel
06.06 Rock & Ring AM Festival in Germany Zeppelinfeld/Nurnberg