Californian Soil

• German Translation*

According to website NME, singer Hannah Reid said in a statement:

This record is about gaining possession of my own life. You imagine success will be amazing. Then you see it from the inside and ask, ‘Why am I not controlling this thing? Why am I not allowed to be in control of it? And does that connect, in any way to being a woman? If so, how can I do that differently?'

She also said in an Instagram post:

For our new album Californian Soil, I tried to channel my own personal chaos into something positive and powerful.

She’s quoted on London Grammar’s official website:

“Californian Soil” sums up the metaphor of the whole album, something stunningly beautiful that everyone aspires to, with a dark underbelly to it.

In an interview with Billboard, Hannah Reid declared:

We went back and forth a lot [on when to release Californian Soil]. We felt this was the most upbeat album we have probably ever made. In the middle of a pandemic, there is a risk that this just won’t connect right now. There was no rush and I’m glad we waited.

Connecting with website NME, members talked about the album.

• Hannah:

  I felt like, ‘You know what, that really didn’t work for me and I kind of have nothing else to lose now’. I want to just be completely vulnerable, say everything that I want to say and people will like it or they won’t.
  […] It’s the most upbeat London Grammar have ever been.

• Dot:

  Lyrically, Californian Soil is very much about Hannah’s experience as a woman, and we wanted that message to come through as loud as possible.

Hannah also discussed the feminist significance of the LP in a talk with Red Bull:

It’s definitely in the lyrics. I did have quite profound experiences being a woman in the music industry and then realising that when I came home from being on tour and spoke to my girlfriends about it, they were all having the same experiences. It was disappointing and made me feel like, ‘Wow, the world has not moved on in the way I thought it had.’