Islands (Justin Rutledge album)

Islands is the ninth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Justin Rutledge, released on March 26, 2021 on Outside Music.^[1] The album comprises new re-recordings of songs from throughout his career, in a project meant to provide insight into his songwriting process by redoing each song in a manner reflective of how it was originally conceived and written, and structured to resemble one of his live concerts.^[2]

Islands
Studio album by Justin Rutledge
Released	March 26, 2021
Recorded	2020
Genre	Alternative country
Label	Outside Music
Justin Rutledge chronology
Passages (2019) Islands (2021)

"Jellybean", a song which Rutledge wrote in his early 20s and has regularly performed live as the conclusion to most of his concerts but has never previously recorded for an album, was released in February 2021 as the album's first single.^[3] According to Rutledge, he has tried to record the song for commercial release before, but found it difficult to get right in a studio context as it's a song designed for a large room full of people to sing along.^[2] With the album's recording taken place during the COVID-19 pandemic, he arrived at the recorded version of "Jellybean" by recording a vocal and guitar track on his own, and then sending it to several other friends with home recording studios so that they could record themselves singing along to it, and then adding each vocal performance to the mix to create the group vocals.^[3] Participants in the recording included Matthew Barber, David Baxter, Rebecca Hunt, Dan Mangan, Blake Manning, Kara Manovitch, Annelise Noronha and Kate Rogers.^[4]

Track listing

1. "Come Summertime" – 5:19
2. "Good Man" – 4:47
3. "This Is War" – 5:18
4. "Out of the Woods" – 4:32
5. "Federal Mail" – 4:11
6. "Nautical Disaster" – 5:00
7. "Alberta Breeze" – 6:40
8. "St. Peter" – 3:46
9. "Jellybean" – 4:38

References

1. David Pratt, "Justin Rutledge: Islands". Folk Radio UK, February 17, 2021.
2. Brad Wheeler, "Why did it take Justin Rutledge 18 years to record and finally release his most popular song?: For years, most of the Juno winner's shows have closed with the beer-soaked singalong Jellybean. It's finally being released, as the lead single to his new album Islands". The Globe and Mail, March 22, 2021.
3. Ken Churilla, "After Years In His Pocket, Justin Rutledge Pulls Out 'Jellybean'". American Songwriter, February 2, 2021.
4. "Single Release: Justin Rutledge, 'Jellybean'". Great Dark Wonder, January 28, 2021.