[Cover photo credit to Vogue Giambri]
Canadian-Colombian singer/songwriter Tei Shi has released her eponymous new album Valerie out now via The Orchard. The independent release arrives alongside her new single and visual “Falling From Grace” Produced by Tei Shi, Nick Hakim, Noah Beresin and Zooey Celeste. The new album includes previously released singles “No Falta” and “QQ“ (Quédate Queriéndome).
Valerie arrives ahead of her North American The Valerie Tour Part One, which kicks off in Boston on May 1st, 2024 and spans nine cities, including Toronto, New York, Vancouver, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It will wrap in Seattle on May 12th and will include support from Sean Nicholas Savage, Amira Jazeera, ZADA, Salt Cathedral, and Kaleah Lee on select dates.
Tei Shi works with Pop, R&B, bachata, tropicalia, and Indie Shoegaze and bilingual lyricism.
Speaking on the new single, Tei Shi shares:
“Falling From Grace” is probably my most personal song yet. It was inspired by a near-death experience I had in 2020 with an unexpected pregnancy which led to emergency surgery to save my life. The experience stayed with me and took me a long time to process, but it wasn’t until I sat down with Nick Hakim and Zooey Celeste a year later in Nick’s studio that I was able to put any words to it. The song came together like a sudden apparition once Nick and Zooey allowed me to share my experience and emotions with them and encouraged me to channel them into a song.
To me, this is a classic song about confronting one’s mortality at the same time as one’s ability to create, and ultimately it deals with the confusion and loss that often comes from that. I feel like it channels some of the duality of being in a woman’s body — the complexity and fragility our bodies often present to our own lives at the same time as their capacity to create life. Falling From Grace was produced by myself, Nick Hakim, Noah Beresin and Zooey Celeste, and sonically the song leans more into a shoegaze, indie rock sound, which I have always loved and incorporated into my albums throughout the years.”
Touching on the new album, Tei Shi shares:
BAD PREMONITION was my cathartic return to being a fully independent artist – my new album, Valerie, extends the EP’s six tracks to thirteen and is almost the precursor to BAD PREMONITION. It’s a lot of the early songs I wrote during the first phases of the pandemic…through being duped by my label and management at the time, through surviving a life-threatening experience, through losing touch with myself personally and creatively. On Valerie, I’m peeling back the initial layer and exposing my most personal and intimate musings through one of the most confusing periods of my life.
THE VALERIE TOUR PART ONE DATES
5/1 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair #
5/2 – Toronto, ON @ TD Music Hall #
5/4 – New York, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg #
5/5 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd #
5/6 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village $
5/8 – Vancouver, BC @ The Fox &
5/9 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent !!
5/11 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom !!
5/12 – Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s **
SUPPORT FROM:
# Sean Nicolas Savage
$ Amira Jazeera
& ZADA
!! Salt Cathedral
** Kaleah Lee
