Kevin Bronson on September 10th, 2014

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Lili Haydn describes her new album “LiliLand” as “fun, fragile, and ferocious songs about losing everything and getting it back.” In the case of the singer, songwriter and rock violinist nonpareil, that’s not hyperbole. The album, her fourth and first in six years, “was recorded in the four years following a freak chemical accident in my home, in which the pesticides in the foundation used to prevent termites made me sick, caused brain damage and forced me to get rid of everything I owned,” she says. “After trying every therapy around, I finally recovered by way of practicing my violin.” “LiliLand”  finds the 38-year-old showcasing those skills – she’s been likened to Hendrix with a violin, which is no hyperbole either, if you’ve ever seen her live – in sprawling arrangements made more dramatic by her flair for candid lyricism. Guests on the album, which comes out next week, include Blake Mills, Marvin Etzioni and Itai Disraeli; included is a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” that lends a new degree of believability to the lyric “I am a traveler / of both time and space.”

||| Stream: “My My, Cross the Line” and an EP version of “Sea of Gold,” which also appears on the full-length

||| Live: Lili Haydn celebrates her album release with a show, in collaboration with the human rights organization “AmeriCares,” on Sept. 30 at Sayers Club.

Photo by Steve Appleford