The Fabulous Truth is an homage to the anti-hero — an eight song suite that explores moral ambiguities, life in the shadows, and the possibility of escape from social expectations. The second full-length album by composer and multi-instrumentalist Eve Essex, The Fabulous Truth is both an ecstatic paean to liberty and an intense look at the psychological prices paid for seeking independence in an unforgiving world.

Drawing on influences as diverse as trip-hop, outlaw country, kosmische, spiritual jazz, avant-garde classical, and—yes—musical theater, Essex sets jewel-like portraits of rebellion against a velvet-black background of stormy electronics and uneasy minimalism. The album treats genre with a freewheeling attitude, and Essex’s confident sound is augmented by musicians including guitarists jenghis and Luke Moldof, and downtown New York music legend Peter Zummo on trombone and euphonium. Intimate lyrics—confessional in tone, literary, striking in their bold mutations of classic songwriting genres—are contrasted with brooding compositions that evoke long journeys across vast landscapes and continents; wagon trains and ship voyages taken in pursuit of a new life, the view from a satellite orbiting the Earth at high speed. The Fabulous Truth is an album about freedom and boundaries, intimacy and security, raising questions about who you let into your life and why. 

The Fabulous Truth releases on June 20, 2024 via Soap Library in digital, cassette, and LP formats — a first for the label. Cassettes are accompanied by an embroidered patch that mirrors James JA Mercer’s cover artwork.