Dear Reader

Folk/indie pop duo Dear Reader originated in Johannesburg, South Africa, when singer/songwriter Cerilyn MacNeil and producer/bass player Darryl Torr formed the project in 2006. They initially performed under the name Harris Tweed, but the Scottish textile company sharing that name asked them to stop using it. After adopting the Dear Reader moniker, the pair issued their first album, The Younger, via the South African imprint Just Music. The release drew interest from Berlin’s City Slang, which put out the Brent Knopf–produced follow-up Replace Why with Funny in 2009; Knopf’s prior work includes projects with Menomena and Ramona Falls. Torr chose to exit the partnership in 2010, and the split remained amicable. MacNeil then relocated alone to Berlin to stay near her label and the network she had built during tours, where she began shaping the next record. Issued in 2011, Idealistic Animals still appeared under the Dear Reader banner even though Torr no longer participated. MacNeil has described the effort as a collective endeavor that drew on whichever collaborators were available. She took full production duties for the subsequent album Rivonia, whose tracks each recount a narrative rooted in the folk storytelling tradition of her homeland. The collection earned two South African Music Award nominations in 2013. That same year she also captured and issued her debut live recording, which preserved a radio-broadcast performance alongside the Babelsberg Film Orchestra. No further material surfaced until 2016, when the fifth Dear Reader album was announced for a 2017 release, led by the advance single “I Know You Can Hear It.”