TORONTO, ON – January 20, 2023 – Today, singer-songwriter Caroline Spence announces a deluxe edition of her acclaimed 2022 album, True North, which is slated for release on June 16. True North (Deluxe) features six bonus tracks including four alternate versions of songs that appear on the album as well as two brand new recordings. 
 
An acoustic rendition of fan favourite, Mary Oliver, is available today. Listen to it here. The wistful sigh that opens the track sets the tone for Spence’s introspective musings, which are accompanied by gently strummed guitars and backing vocals by the album’s producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer, Jordan Lehning. 
 

I don’t wanna put my pain on a pedestal
Wrap it up and sell it to you at the record store
I know we all feel the same, I’m just a little louder
Same lemons in my bloody hands, turning me sour
 
So, I’ve been playing at the church of Mary Oliver
Yeah, I’m trying on myself and love all of her
I’m finding wonder in the highest sense
And owning up to lies and sins
And when I think I’m done
I do it again
When I think I’m done
I do it again and again and again

 
Spence spent much of the past year on the road, both as a headliner and as support for artists including American Aquarium, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Madi Diaz, Emmylou Harris, John Moreland, and David Ramirez. She will announce live appearances for 2023 in the coming weeks. 
 
"Releasing this new version of ‘Mary Oliver’ at the beginning of the new year feels right because it was my resolution or mission statement for this album and the next season of my career,” notes Spence.  She reflects, “To be ‘a heart on a sleeve,’ as I sing in the song, is as good a new year’s resolution as any. This song is a plea for gentleness and self-acceptance; it’s a case for humility and vulnerability. Every time I sing this song I think ‘yes, I still feel that way. I still want those things’ — it feels like a code of ethics that I recommit to every time I stand on the stage and sing it. 
 
This past year, I’ve had to play solo as an opening act a lot and singing this song with just a voice and guitar, I was reminded each night about how vulnerable this song really is. Without the full production, the song reads more as an intimate excavation of deep desires than a musical exaltation of publicized principles.  On the album, I wanted it to feel massive and expansive sonically, for the message to reach the treetops.  But in this acoustic version, which is much closer to how I first wrote it and how I’ve been performing it when solo, we brought it back down to the earth."
 
Critical praise for True North:
 
“On her latest collection of wise, lucid songwriting, the Nashville artist brings a sense of depth and directness to her songs…On True North, she sings about embracing the present (‘The Gift’), surrendering to love (‘Scale These Walls’), and taking big risks (‘Icarus’) with a sageness that shows the influence of her literary heroes – Oliver, Walt Whitman, and Buddhist nun Pem Chödrön. She sounds like someone you can trust.” – Brad Sanders, Pitchfork
 
“Caroline Spence’s songs are often cinematic, traversing the jagged landscape of human emotion, navigating the razor-thin lines between longing, loss, and love. Her intimate lyrics evoke the ways the human heart pulses with anxiety, uncertainty, and strength. True North illustrates how even a single note of music can carry us deeper into the recesses of our longings and yearnings—and transport us beyond them.” – Henry Carrigan, Folk Alley
 
“Song for song, Truth North provides some of Spence’s best compositions to date. In an era where we are collectively reassessing meanings of life and death, the singer-songwriter’s latest will stand as a lasting memento 一 an apt discernment of time and aging.” – Bee Scott, Holler
 
“…a gorgeous collection of songs that blur the lines between folk and country, and this one has even more of an atmospheric, ethereal feel than its predecessor.” - Andrew Sacher, Brooklyn Vegan
 
“Throughout True North, Spence makes it clear that her songs exist to communicate the tiny revelations of her lived experience... Spence shows us that grief is ultimately the last expression of love, but it is love nonetheless.” – Matt Ruppert, No Depression
 
“True North is an elegant and beautiful reminder to find the poetry, and the melody, in this wild and precious life.” - Michelle Lindsey, Highway Queens

 

DOWNLOAD - Mary Oliver (Acoustic) Single Art