Bella White did not have to travel far when making her third album, A Sign in the Weather. After recording her relatively polished 2023 sophomore record, Among Other Things, in a Los Angeles studio in Topanga Canyon, the Calgary expat moved permanently to New Orleans. Some of her bandmates now live in the same neighbourhood as well as her friend, musician Lee Walker. White decided Walker’s shotgun house on the Mississippi River would be the perfect make-shift studio for a more low-key recording. Producer Ross Farbe, another friend who plays with New Orleans’ indie-pop band Video Age, brought his equipment to Walker’s house to oversee the laid-back sessions.
A Familial Recording Experience
“It was very familial,” says White. “I would just walk down the street to the studio — studio in air quotes — every morning. It was lovely.” This reflects both the intimate, live-off-the-floor vibe that White wanted for this particular set of songs and her seemingly innate ability to form or become part of a tight-knit musical community wherever she goes.
New Orleans' Musical Influence
New Orleans is rich with the history of jazz and blues and remains one of North America’s most vibrant musical meccas, a melting-pot for Zydeco, R&B, brass and Dixie bands, but also home to a new generation of rootsy singer-songwriters. So it’s a no-brainer that a musician would want to live there, particularly one who became precociously well-versed in strains of southern American musical traditions while growing up in Calgary. “Being here opens your eyes up a little bit,” says White. “I’m not a jazz musician, but I get to hear all this great jazz music all the time. I don’t play in a brass band, but I get to hear it. It offers a perspective artistically to be in a very cultural city with very distinct energy.”
Artistic Maturity on Display
While this grounding and exposure to tradition may only trickle into White’s music in subtle ways these days, there is no denying that the 11 songs on A Sign in the Weather showcase an artistic vision well beyond the singer-songwriter’s 25 years. Musically, White shifts from the heartbreaking opening folk ballad Trouble, to the shuffling, fiddle-fuelled Appalachian-leaning Doing Well and the mid-tempo Americana anthem False Start. Lyrically, songs such as the haunting Pink Living Room take a melancholic look at nostalgia, while False Start offers the backdrop of the devastating North Carolina floods after Hurricane Helene to denounce meaningless chatter and “small-town talk.”
Reflecting on Change
It reflects a new maturity in her outlook and songwriting on her third album, which comes out on Nashville’s Rounder Records on June 5. “I don’t think I was intentionally writing with a theme in mind,” she says. “I would say I wrote the songs over the course of a year, and within that year, I was experiencing some big changes in my life. I moved cities, I ended a relationship and just sort of uprooted myself. There was a lot of reflecting and a lot of processing in that time. I think there was a slightly different dynamic in my songwriting. I think a lot of my songs in the past, especially when I was younger, were love songs of yearning and wanting love or whatever. I think this one was more about reflecting on the after rather than the before.”
Critical Acclaim and Vocal Authenticity
Ever since White burst onto the scene with her 2020 debut, Just Like Leaving, critics and fans have been drawn not only to her songwriting but also to her voice and phrasing. Her vocals possess a timeless, lived-in quality that suggests an authenticity beyond her years. Even before her debut was released, Rolling Stone magazine referred to the singer as offering “sublime Appalachian heartbreak” when reviewing debut single The Hand of Your Raising. NPR said she has “a voice for the ages.”
