White Hinterland Premieres New Track “Baby”

White Hinterland has premiered new song “Baby” today, the title track from Dienel’s forthcoming album, which is due out April 1 on Dead Oceans. White Hinterland is about to hit the road, supporting S. Carey on a string of North American dates next month.

Freedom often begins from terror, and White Hinterland’s third album, Baby, addresses the fear that comes along with breaking out of established rituals, or leaving a comfortable place, and striking out into the unknown. Four years after her release,Kairos (2010), Casey Dienel aka White Hinterland has taken the gloves off and knuckled down to produce a deep, dark, heady mix of songs. After two and a half years of writing and recording material in Montreal and Portland, OR, Dienel moved back in to her family home in Scituate, MA. There she forged a new aesthetic, spending five months building her own studio, The Glades, in her parents’ basement – the same space where she practiced piano and vocal lessons as a child. Determined to helm her new album, Dienel spent months studying production, poring over YouTube tutorials about Protools, mic’ing techniques and other minutiae.

Armed with this self-taught skill and her new studio, Dienel set forth to subvert the existing power structure of male producer as svengali and female artist as figurehead (see: Billy Corgan/Courtney Love, Timbaland/Aaliyah, Phil Spector/The Ronettes). She created her own, new path on Baby, which showcases her as a singer/songwriter/producer who has only become bolder and more resolute over the past three-plus years. Calling in her friends as pinch hitters, Dienel worked acclaimed musicians Sean Carey (Bon Iver, S. Carey), Neal Morgan (Joanna Newsom, Bill Callahan), and Cole Kamen-Green (Beyoncé).

Dienel’s Baby is both the pop cliché of “Oooh, Baby Baby” and Dienel telling herself to stop being such a baby. It is a word of both endearment and dismissal, repurposed to serve her needs. It’s a cathartic embrace of hardship, the crucible which can forge the strongest steel. It is the past three years of her life distilled into song: joy, heartbreak, frustration, longing, disappointment, anger, and loss accumulated, poured out and reborn in this new, unflinching release.

Baby | Tracklisting /

01. Wait Until Dark
02. Dry Mind
03. Ring the Bell
04. David
05. Baby
06. White Noise
07. Metronome
08. No Devotion
09. Sickle No Sword
10. Live With You

Upcoming Tour Dates

03.07.14 – The Press Room – Portsmouth, NH
03.12.14 – BAR Nightclub (Free Show) – New Haven, CT
03.20.14 – Columbus Theater – Providence, RI
03.22.14 – Buoy Gallery – Kittery, ME ~
04.01.14 – Brick & Mortar Music Hall (Woode Shoppe) – San Francisco, CA
04.03.14 – Bootleg Bar – Los Angeles, CA
04.05.14 – Opolis – Norman, OK *
04.06.14 – Three Links – Dallas, TX *
04.07.14 – Holy Mountain – Austin, TX *
04.09.14 – Circle Bar – New Orleans, LA *
04.10.14 – Bottletree – Birmingham, AL *
04.11.14 – Eddie’s Attic – Decatur, GA *
04.12.14 – King’s – Raleigh, NC *
04.13.14 – Rock and Roll Hotel – Washington, DC *
04.14.14 – Boot & Saddle – Philadelphia, PA *
04.16.14 – Le Poisson Rouge – New York, NY *
04.17.14 – Great Scott – Boston, MA *
04.18.14 – Il Motore – Montreal, QC *
04.19.14 – The Garrison – Toronto, ON *
04.21.14 – Pike Room – Pontiac, MI *
04.22.14 – Calvin College – Grand Rapids, MI *
04.23.14 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL *
04.24.14 – Club Garibaldi – Milwaukee, WI *
04.25.14 – Cedar Cultural Center – Minneapolis, MN *
04.26.14 – TBD – Eau Claire, WI *