The first sound you hear on a A Fool Who’ll, the new album by transcendent songwriter Laura Jean, is something never before heard on a Laura Jean record. It’s the sound of an electric guitar. Back in 2009, Laura was one of eight songwriters to receive an APRA Professional Development Award, and among the cash, recording equipment and other prizes, she also won a pastel yellow Gibson SG. You could say Laura Jean went to the country and came back with a rock record. She thinks of it as the dark twin of her first album. “A fool who’ll is about realising we’re at the mercy of factors that we can’t understand or control, but learning to surrender to that unknowing,” she says. Recorded in Melbourne by Simon Grounds, mixed by Darryl Neudorf (Neko Case, New Pornographers, Sarah MacLachlan) and mastered by Peter J. Moore (Neil Young, Cowboy Junkies, Joni Mitchell), A Fool Who’ll is a landmark album for Laura, a reinvention of sorts, but also the starkest and most concentrated expression yet from an artist who grows bolder with each release.