James Urbaniak

Indie folk-and-piano icon Aimee Mann has just announced a new album. It’s called Queens of the Summer Hotel and it’s due out November 5th via Mann’s own label SuperEgo. Apparently it came about after Mann started developing music for a stage adaptation of Girl, Interrupted in 2018. To preview the record, she’s sharing the album’s lead single, “Suicide Is Murder,” along with a music video below. According to a press release, Queens of the Summer consists of “a song cycle constructed from music that Mann wrote for the show.” It’s sung by Mann and orchestrated with her longtime collaborator Paul Bryan. As a nod to the project’s theatrical origins, the album features strings and woodwinds in addition to Mann’s usual style of piano playing. It spans 15 songs in total and serves as the follow-up...