Purr

Between 1966 and 1970, the American artist Barnett Newman painted a series of four large scale paintings titled Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue. They’re simple, but produce a whole register of feelings, emotions — the color is the subject, the paintings do not represent anything, but only express themselves. How can a canvas saturated in red synthesize something as complicated as fear? It just does. That painting series’ title was a reference to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a play from the 60s by Edward Albee, which was in itself a reference to "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", the song from the 30s immortalized in Disney cartoons.

These Newman paintings are the conceptual backdrop of ‘Who Is Afraid of Blue?,’ the sophomore album of lifelong New Yorkers Eliza Barry Callahan and Jack Staffen’s project Purr. It is in many ways a record about these abstract registers of fear — saturated with emotion, introspection, and that very sense of overwhelm.

Callahan and Staffen started writing this record in late 2019, shortly before the release of ‘Like New,’ the group’s debut, and following shows supporting acts from Weyes Blood to Maggie Rogers. But just as they began writing, Callahan started to suddenly and rapidly lose her hearing. She was told she could be deaf in a year’s time. It did not seem like there was a cure. 2020 rolled around, the duo canceled their tour so she could take care of her health.