Rumer This Girl's In Love (A Bacharach & David Songbook)

The album features some of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's most memorable co-compositions and sees Rumer bring her extensive experience and singular talent to bear on her most enticing undertaking to date. Recorded at the renowned Capitol Studios with accomplished arranger, composer and orchestrator, Rob Shirakbari - THIS GIRL'S IN LOVE includes an appearance by Bacharach himself on piano. To mark the news, Rumer has shared a first track "(They Long To Be) Close To You," with live plans to be announced shortly.

What's most fitting to THIS GIRL'S IN LOVE is the personal relationship between Rumer and Shirakbari. The pair married in 2015 in Shirakbari's native Arkansas after first meeting at a Dionne Warwick gala at the Royal Albert Hall where Rumer was to sing a duet of Bacharach & David's "Hasbrook Heights." With Shirakbari having worked for 25 years with Bacharach and 30 years with Dionne Warwick-serving as musical director to them both-this could even be deemed "a Bacharach romance." It was a natural project for the newly married couple to create together, with both having great respect and reverence for the song catalogue.

Some of the songs on THIS GIRL'S IN LOVE are as familiar as any from the 20th century. Which is why Rumer and Shirakbari decided, in many cases, to remake/remodel them, affording these standards a melancholia that gets right to the emotive core of Bacharach's melodies and David's lyrics. Where before "(They Long to Be) Close to You" might have been slightly wistful, here there is a sense that the lyric's longing is unlikely to be consummated. "The Look of Love" is more sepulchral, with just a taste of the bossa nova tendencies of the '60s versions. "You'll Never Get To Heaven" has all the sophistication of Dionne Warwick's take, but with a new attention to the cautionary narrative of the lyrics. And Rumer has dug deeper into the catalogue to find the hidden treasure "Balance of Nature" and made it her own.