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May 07, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Jen Squires

Later this week, Toronto-based folk singer/songwriter Abigail Lapell is set to share her fifth full-length album, Anniversary. The record follows after her 2022 effort, Stolen Time, and last year’s record Lullabies, an album of traditional lullabies from around the world. Anniversary sees Lapell joining with Great Lake Swimmers frontman Tony Dekker as co-producer to record the album in a historic Ontario church.

Lapell describes the album as a meditation on growing old with someone and a deconstruction of love in popular music. “I wanted to explore some of the contradictions within the pop culture notion of love,” she says. “These dichotomies of light and dark, love and loss, fleeting and eternal – even in the traditional wedding vows, ‘sickness and health, richer or poorer.’”

This year, Lapell shared the album’s lead single, “Anniversary Song,” followed by “Rattlesnake” and “Count on Me.” Today, she’s back with a fourth and final single from the album, “Flowers In My Hair,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Flowers In My Hair” makes full use of the resonant acoustics in the church where it was recorded, using only stomps, handclaps, and acapella harmonies to support Lapell’s vocals. The resulting track is far more stripped-back than any of the record’s previous singles yet it also sounds lively, sweet, and sunny, filling the negative space with hypnotic rhythms and sing-song melodies. Meanwhile, Lapell’s lyrics conjure a similarly sweet and simple moment of sheer, effortless joy: “I don’t have a thing to wear / I got flowers in my hair / I don’t have a thing to do / But lay all day in the sun with you”

Lapell says of the track, “‘Flowers In My Hair’ is a summery song about skinny dipping and lying around sunbathing, covered in flowers, and feeling carefree and in love – or, at least, in love enough for the moment.”
Check out the song and video below. Anniversary is out on May 10th.