Abigail Lapell – Shadow Child

Description

Abigail Lapell's 'Shadow Child' is a poignant folk album that explores themes of love, loss, and self-discovery. Released by Outside Music, this collection showcases her evocative songwriting and rich vocal delivery.

Highlights

Genre: Folk
Release Date: May 8, 2026
Label: Outside Music
Features 10 original tracks

Track Listing

01. Without You

02. Why

03. Sad and Lonely

04. Fly Me Away

05. Lyra’s Theme

06. April Love

07. I Lost Myself

08. What Was It For

09. Alone

10. All Across the World

Format Details

Label: Outside Music
Genre: Folk
Release Date: 2026-05-08
Format: CD

CD, Digipack
Release Date: May 8, 2026
Coming soon!
Item #: CD-OUTS-9493
UPC: 623339949323
EAN: 0623339949323

Item Information

Artist: Lapell, Abigail
Title: Shadow Child
Genre: Folk / Singer-Songwriters
Label: Outside Music

Every mother has a unique story. One thing is true for every mother, though: There’s no deadline quite like a pregnancy.

Award-winning Toronto singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell was pregnant with her first child when she booked studio time on Vancouver Island to make an album about motherhood. The nine songs on Shadow Child — one for each month of gestation — had to be ready before then, and her return flight was booked on the last day she could safely fly in her third trimester.

Working with producer Colin Stewart (Dan Mangan, Black Mountain), Lapell finished her songs in the studio and on rural walks beside the Pacific Ocean. She enlisted some of her favourite singers, all British Columbians, all mothers: Frazey Ford, Jill Barber, Pharis Romero. “They’re all people with unique, distinctive voices,” she says, “which is what I’m drawn to.”

Musically, Lapell was looking for a stark, acoustic sound, as opposed to 2024’s Juno Award-nominated Anniversary (recorded in Niagara with Great Lake Swimmers’ Tony Dekker) and 2022’s acclaimed Stolen Time (recorded in Montreal with Howard Bilerman, featuring E Street Band saxophonist Jake Clemons).

Lapell’s road to motherhood was fraught, involving years of IVF and a 2023 miscarriage — that she experienced on stage while on tour. (She finished her set.) Her son was born in November 2024. The song cycle of Shadow Child covers joy and loss, using metaphors from Maritime tragedy, “little cannibals,” reproductive health, acquiring language, and lives altered by the arrival of a newborn. The title track refers to ultrasound imaging of “a liminal person that doesn’t quite exist yet,” says Lapell. “Their status is ontologically blurry.”

Shadow Child arrives May 8 – Mother’s Day weekend - on CD, Digital, and Lavender vinyl LP. Singles “Hazel,” “Shadow Child”, and “So Long” roll out starting in January.

Format: CD
Availability : PRE ORDER
Genre: FOLK
Format Type: CD
Released: 2026-05-08