Azniv Korkejian has announced a new album as Bedouine, Neon Summer Skin, due out June 5 via Thirty Tigers. She co-produced it with longtime collaborator Gus Seyffert, and also worked with Jonathan Rado and Michael and Brian D’Addario of the Lemon Twigs on a couple of tracks. See the cover art and tracklist below. Korkejian wrote the album after visiting her family in Saudi Arabia, and she says, “For my 20s and much of my 30s, I couldn’t sit still. I was so curious about my own independence that it just didn’t occur to me for the longest time to mourn the past. But after that trip to Saudi Arabia, I came home and was so devastated. I couldn’t place the feeling immediately, but as I started writing, I realized I was processing that I wasn’t ready to stop being somebody’s kid.” She adds, “I felt so frustrated about the places that I’m from becoming war torn or difficult to return to. My family has been split apart time and time again, immigrating between Armenia, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. I wanted to document and honor my family’s stories.”
The first single is the very pretty, subdued “Long Way to Fall;” watch the video, directed by Jackie Bao, below. “For me it represents the difference between a close sibling-like relationship at a very young age versus one as adults,” Bedouine says. “It’s no longer as simple as roughhousing one minute and playing the next. It’s more delicate. You have to respect each other’s space even when you’d rather shake someone awake.”
Bedouine has a pair of release shows lined up, in Los Angeles (Largo at the Coronet on June 6) and Brooklyn (National Sawdust on June 11). Those are her only upcoming shows at the moment.
