The Arizona-born, Nashville-based Danielle Durack’s music combines the pop sensibilities of childhood favorites like Sara Bareilles with a modern wit that slots her right next to contemporaries like boygenius and Hop Along. Beginning with debut album Bashful, Durack’s developed her sound into something mature and emotionally complex, without skimping on the hooks and humor. Her third album, Escape Artist, arrives February 16th. 

Following Bashful, a breakup led to an artistic breakthrough. her sophomore record, No Place garnered praise from Pitchfork, NPR, and other outlets for its honest portrayal of a long term relationship’s dissolution. No Place was released in the middle of an intense, lockdown-induced writer's block. Once she started writing again, music became her solace and a place to safely process the emotional turmoil of the past year. The title, Escape Artist, is a reflection of this.

Escape Artist, recorded with Samuel Rosson, is her densest, most emotional record to date. The topics are more wide-ranging - lighthearted breakup narratives now coexist alongside darker material about anxiety and codependency. The soundscapes where Durack finds herself on Escape Artist, in and of themselves, are someplace heavenly and otherworldly in which to lose herself for just a little while: she says, “Music has been a safe place for me to go to all this time.”

Some of the topics we cover during our conversation today are: the challenges and excitement of starting over in a new place, processing our inner and outer world through song, and escapism.

Danielle Durack's Music:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6GW3s0BFKxz18pDxGXPQnG?si=zjzxGaqZQByT-drmlLUtMw

https://www.danielledurack.com/

https://www.danielledurack.com/