To know Louise Cappi is to know one of music’s freshest, most humble voices. Hailing from the cultural melting pot of New Orleans, Louisiana, and still finding time to perform in the city as well as in NYC, there are very few acts truer to the indie mindset and indie trajectory than Cappi herself. Her father, the late esteemed guitarist Al Cappi, lit the musical flame for Louise and propelled her to chase her artistic dreams. As they say, the rest is history. Selling out shows at New Orleans’ own Mahogany Jazz Hall with a residency has taken up a decent stretch of Cappi’s time, but when she isn’t putting on a fantastic show she’s been holed up in the studio for the first time since her 2017 debut album Melange.
Returning to studio sessions is an act as expected for musicians as death and taxes; that is to say, there was always the certainty, but never the concrete date for exactly when Cappi and her band would re-enter the songwriting and recording whirlwind. For someone whose music translates extremely well to a live setting, it makes total sense that the last four years would be spent nurturing such an angle for the music before putting it back down on tape, with the preoccupation being an entirely fulfilling process of its own. Still, new albums only contribute positively to live shows by allowing the band and fans to have more material to fill the show’s time with, and for the first time since 2017, fans of Cappi will finally have a batch of new material before they know it.
Hot off of the soon-to-be-released Hope, an album due out in the third quarter of 2021, comes the debut single “Hope.” It shares its title with the album, a first for Cappi, and the single is something to truly marvel at as its core production values match Cappi’s previous musical releases but in an even tighter fashion. The single is five minutes in length and works as a smooth, laidback blues-rock track that more than satisfies the need for more Louise Cappi tracks — her warm voice croons about the absolute need for hope and all the various ways hope can release people from various inhibitions. “What is hope? It’s the steel in your spine that takes you to the finish line. Hope, hope is the antidote.”
There’s a reinstated breath of confidence and artistic ingenuity to be garnered from “Hope” as a single, and its optimism sets the table with great prospects as far as the rest of the album is concerned. Information on the album is still being kept minimal, its tracklist and release date particularly under wraps, but Louise Cappi is back with a fervor for her work and her fans, and that in itself is enough to amp up the rollout process for the album that is still yet to fully be announced. “Hope” truly is the antidote… to the doldrums of expected summer hits, offering something unique and memorable to spark up a little contrast from the daily routine.
Claire Uebelacker