Stella Donnelly releases title track off of new album’Flood’ out August 26th

Today, Stella Donnelly presents “Flood,” the title track/video from her forthcoming album, out August 26th on Secretly Canadian. “Flood” follows last month’s “Lungs,” Donnelly’s “masterclass in how to release a single in the spring season” (Rolling Stone). Directed by Donnelly, Nick McKk and Grace Goodwin, the accompanying “Flood” video centers on an idyllic summer day — or at least Donnelly’s idiosyncratic version of one. “This clip is pure ridiculous play, like going to your grandparents house where you and your cousins would get up to the most elaborate film projects,” Donnelly says. “We always ran around the house making home movies that tried to re-enact other films and much like this clip here, they always ended in some sort of minor catastrophe. With this video for ‘Flood’ we have made a very feeble attempt at recreating the legendary OK GO video clip for ‘Here it Goes Again’ and we failed gloriously.”

Of  “Flood,” Donnelly says: “This song feels like a sad little adventure. I wrote it in the dark depths of a Melbourne winter lockdown where it had been raining for consecutive weeks. Everyone around me was falling into their own version of depression at different times. It felt like a flood of trauma yet at the same time, we were given an opportunity of time to work through stuff that we’d been distracting ourselves with for so long prior to the pandemic.” 

Watch Stella Donnelly’s “Flood” Video

Like the many Banded Stilt birds that spread across the cover of her newest album Flood, Stella Donnelly is wading into uncharted territory. Here, she finds herself discovering who she is as an artist among the flock, and how abundant one individual can be. Flood is Donnelly’s record of this rediscovery: the product of months of risky experimentation, hard moments of introspection, and a lot of moving around. With new locations came new approaches. “It freshened things up for sure,” Donnelly says, and writing with band members Jennifer Aslett, George Foster, Jack Gaby and Marcel Tussie, soon began to feel like kindergarten play, with co-producers Anna Laverty and Methyl Ethyl’s Jake Webb helping to foster an important spontaneity in the studio. This spontaneity saw Donnelly straying from her trusted electric guitar, instead moving to piano and imbuing her new work with a fluidity and vulnerability that befits Flood’s introspective nature. Donnelly had not played much piano since her early childhood and there was something wonderfully playful and poignant about climbing back up onto the piano stool and finding her fingers. Flood revels in this. 

Looking back at the Banded Stilt, Donnelly ultimately appreciates how when “seen in a crowd they create an optical illusion, but on its own it’s this singular piece of art.” While each song on Flood is a singular artwork unto itself, the collective shares all of Stella Donnelly in abundance: her inner child, her nurturing self, her nightmare self; all of herself has gone into the making of this record, and although it would take an ocean to fathom everything she feels, it’s well worth diving in.

This fall, Donnelly will embark on a world tour, including stops at Los Angeles, Chicago, Brooklyn, and a plethora of dates across Europe and the UK. Full dates are listed below and tickets are on sale now.

Pre-order Flood

Watch “Lungs” Video

Stella Donnelly Tour Dates

Mon. Jun. 27 – Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vrendenburg * 

Tue. Jun. 28 – Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vrendenburg * 

Thu. Jun. 30 – Berlin, DE  @ Verti Music Hall * 

Sun. Jul. 3 – Six-Fours-les-Plages, FR @ Pointu Festival
Thur. Jul. 7 – Biscay, ES @ BBK Bilbao Festival

Sat. Jul. 23 – Byron Bay, AU @ Splendour In The Grass

Sun. Sept. 11 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah

Mon. Sept. 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda

Tue. Sept. 13 – San Francisco, CA @ Independent 

Thu. Sept. 15 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios 

Fri. Sept. 16 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret 

Sat. Sept. 17 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos 

Wed. Sept. 21 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe

Thu. Sept. 22 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall

Fri. Sept. 23 – Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary

Sat. Sept. 24 – Toronto, ON @ Longboat Hall

Mon. Sept. 26 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom

Wed. Sept. 28 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere

Fri. Sept. 30 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live

Sat. Oct. 1 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd

Tue. Nov. 1 – Leeds, UK @ Wardrobe

Wed. Nov. 2 – Glasgow @ Mono

Thu. Nov. 3 – Manchester @ Band On The Wall

Fri. Nov. 4 – Dublin, IE @ Whelan’s

Sun. Nov. 6 – Liverpool, UK @ Zanzibar 

Tue. Nov. 8 Nottingham, UK @ Metronome 

Wed. Nov. 9 – Bristol, UK @ Thekla 

Thu. Nov. 10 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton

Sat. Nov. 12 – Cardiff, UK @ The Gate

Sun. Nov. 13 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare and Hounds 

Mon. Nov. 14 – Brighton, UK @ Komedia 

Wed. Nov. 16 – Paris, FR @  FMR 

Thu. Nov. 17 – Cologne, DE @ Artheatre 

Fri. Nov. 18 – Brussels, BE @ Rotonde – Botanique

Sat. Nov. 19 – Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet

Mon. Nov. 21 – Hamburg, DE @ Molotow Skybar

Tue. Nov. 22 – Copenhagen, DK @ Hotel Cecil 

Thu. Nov. 24 – Berlin, DE @ Badehaus

Fri. Nov. 25 – Munich, DE @ Strom !

* w/ Mitski

! w/ Julia Jacklin