Kevin Bronson on November 11th, 2019

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Back in 2005, right after the dream-pop duo Azure Ray went on hiatus after three albums, Maria Taylor released her first solo album, titled “11:11.” Today, on 11/11, the Birmingham, Ala.-bred, L.A.-based singer, released her seventh, a self-titled affair.

Taylor calls the album a collection of ruminations on life’s private and professional signposts, her most personal yet. “Most all of my records are personal,” she acknowledges, ” but there’s something about this one that stands out to me as a true representation of who I am. I hear a calm cohesiveness and strength to this record that comes from a lifetime of learning who I am as an artist and a person.

“Getting old ain’t that bad,” she adds with a smile.

If not her most personal, it’s her most DIY. Co-produced by the artist and her longtime friend Louis Schefano in the living room of her L.A. home, it features duets with Adam Duritz and Joshua Radin and contributions from Taylor’s husband, Ryan Dwyer, her brother, Macey Taylor, guitarists Marko Kurtovic and Brad Armstrong and string player Tiffany Osborn (who recorded her parts in Taylor’s son’s bedroom).

And speaking of the son, 7-year-old Miles Dwyer wrote and performed on “Miley’s Song.”

As with all of Taylor’s catalog, the album’s calling cards are her lilting vocals and affecting lyricism — both of which shine, subtly yet devastatingly, on “Waiting in Line,” the duet with Duritz. Ostensibly, it’s a song about Taylor’s relationship with the music industry — she and Dwyer founded their own label, Flower Moon Records, a few years back — but the song can be viewed through a wider lens.

“I’m getting older / but I’ve got time / Made my decisions / I’ve changed my mind / Now there’s this feeling / I’m waiting in line,” Taylor sings.

Of the song, she says, “Before letting go of something, there’s a feeling in your gut that maybe there’s something waiting around the corner … something that makes it worth holding on to a little longer. To me this song is the equivalent of walking outside on the day you are moving to a new city and there is this beauty you have never seen before in all your years of living there and you wonder, ‘Maybe it’s not time, just yet.’”

Or, like the album itself, the song could be the humorous, homespun reply to the ubiquitous question, “How ya doin’?” As in, “Oh, you know, waiting in line.”

||| Stream: “Waiting in Line” (feat. Adam Duritz)

||| Also: Stream “Maria Taylor” in its entirety

||| Live: Maria Taylor celebrates her album release with a show Dec. 7 at the South Pasadena Masonic Lodge (1126 S. Fair Oaks), joined by Taylor Hollingsworth and Charlie Hickey. Tickets.

||| Previously: “Real Life (Trump Era),” “Free Song”