Kelsea Ballerini Delivers “Mount Pleasant” – 6 Song EP Out Now
Seven-time and current Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year nominee Kelsea Ballerini once again slices into the state of being young, female and fearlessly pursuing love, life and a far-flung career. Mount Pleasant, the six-song EP, moves through the phases and realities of heartbreak, facing finite, self-compassion and embracing the world on its own terms.
As the reflective “I Sit In Parks” continues to generate buzz amongst scores of fans, the song resonates for its unguarded honesty – dropping the mask of perfection, and accepting that, if one can’t have it all, learning to love what you want delivers an uneasy place to make sense of growing up.
“I’ve absolutely fallen in love with making EP’s in between albums. There’s such a freedom and unbounded nature to the process, from the writing to the production, that I have found to be a creative exercise and also palate cleanser for my own artistry” Ballerini offers, “Mount Pleasant is a collection of six songs that I’ve written throughout the summer, marking a chapter of heavy self examination, longing, and stepping further into who I am as a 32 year old woman.”
The fluttery wrassle of “Emerald City,” the quiet piano forward “The Revisionist” or the hand-clap punctuated “People Pleaser,” with its nagging inner voices, explore the pitfalls and cul-de-sacs on the road to truly owning one’s space on one’s own terms. There’s also the hypnotically wistful “587” that runs through all the moments and magic of a chapter closing – tumbling into a stacked vocal chorus with Ballerini’s top of register lines weaving through.
Again working with Alysa Vanderheym, the double Country Album of the Year Grammy nominee for Patterns and Rolling Up The Welcome Mat resolves her most recent song cycle with the crisp, percussion-forward “Check On Your Friends.” Like the opening “I Sit In Parks,” the conversational midtempo offers listeners a reminder that we’re all in this together; to not forget that everybody’s striving, seeking, struggling to get where they’re meant to be.
“In feeling so seen by fans and music lovers in my more recent music that has felt more emotionally peeled back and sometimes uncomfortably honest, I felt encouraged to let it all out in the safest way I know how,” Ballerini explains. “Mount Pleasant is a place, a feeling, an uphill journey, and an idea of what’s to come.”
Having achieved milestones most can’t imagine – TIME100 Next, “Saturday Night Live,” New York Times profiles, headlining tours – Ballerini represents a new kind of female country superstar-on-the-rise. Modern, engaged, vulnerable, seeking, sophisticated, she has created a sound that is sleek, song forward and open to anyone who’s looking for a companion as they sort through life’s mysteries. With Mount Pleasant arriving today, fans and music lovers can crack open the next chapter in a life that offers a mirror for so many other people facing the same things.