Tori Amos will release her highly anticipated new album Ocean to Ocean on October 29, 2021 via Decca Records. She recently shared emotive preview track “Speaking With Trees” to widespread acclaim. Now, Amos reveals the album’s humor and lightness with new album single “Spies” propelled by locomotive bass and drums and Tori’s singular lush pop production. With many parents having a relatable experience at home with their children during the Covid lockdowns, the song is an endearing account of the bats and other creepy-crawlies that entered the Cornish house terrorizing her daughter Tash at night.

Ocean to Ocean is an album of kinship and love, of emotional and geographical dislocation. It explores environmental concerns, the restraints of the pandemic for those on the cusp of adulthood, empowerment, loss & healing delivered with Tori’s trademark urgency and passion. For a record written within limited surroundings, two things are remarkable – its rich stylistic variation, from tango to wide-screen romance, and the big-heartedness of songs, which run almost like a series of love letters to family both present and absent. 

Splitting her life between Cornwall, Florida and the road, her songs are written with the act of traveling and observing. As communities around the world suffered the loss of life, live music, travel, and much at all to observe, Tori had a difficult time during the pandemic. Holed up in Cornwall, she hit a place of personal crisis. Having always been intensely affected by political upheaval in the US, Tori was dismayed by the storming of the Capitol on January 6. Against all odds, that crisis resulted in Ocean to Ocean, Amos’ most personal work in years – an album bursting with warmth and connection, with deep roots in her earliest song writing. She descended to an emotional state lower than she had been to for a long time – but the depths became creative, forcing a return to the kind of introspection she recognised from her debut album Little Earthquakes. 

“We have all had moments that can knock us down,” she says. “This record sits with you where you are, especially if you are in a place of loss. I am fascinated when someone has gone through a tragedy, and how they work through their grief. That is where the gold is. When somebody is actually at that place, thinking “I’m done”, how do you reach that person? Sometimes it’s not about a pill, or a double shot of tequila. It’s about sitting in the muck together. I’m going to meet you in the muck.”

Photo Courtesy: Desmond Murray