Taylor Swift to release surprise Folklore ‘sister’ album Evermore to celebrate 31st birthday

Swift by name, swift by nature.

A mere five months after surprising her fans with secretly recorded indie-folk opus Folklore, Taylor Swift will release a second isolation album for 2020.

Described as the “sister record” to Folklore, Evermore is scheduled to drop at 1pm Perth time on Friday.

The American music superstar’s ninth studio album is also her third since August last year when she issued synth-pop outing, Lover.

The global pandemic has prompted Swift, who turns 31 on Sunday, to tear up the music industry rulebook stipulating long promotional campaigns for major label albums released two or more years apart, interspersed with marathon world tours.

As with its predecessor, the Shake It Off singer announced the release only 16 hours before Evermore was due to be unveiled along with the video for first single and opening track, Willow.

And like lush and deeply romantic Folklore, the new album sees Swift collaborate with songwriters and producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from American indie rockers The National — the band features on the track Coney Island.

“We just couldn’t stop writing songs,” Swift tweeted on Thursday night, Perth time.

We just couldn’t stop writing songs.

“To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the Folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or travel further into the forest of this music.

“We chose to wander deeper in.”

While Bon Iver sang a duet with Swift on the Grammy-nominated single Exile on Folklore, this time the indie folk king appears on the title track, which closes the album.

Swift tweeted that she “loved creating these songs with Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, WB and Justin Vernon”.

WB is William Bowery, the non de plume of her boyfriend, English actor Joe Alwyn.

The other high profile guests on Evermore are Los Angeles sister act Haim, which join Swift for No Body, No Crime, which shapes up as one of the more powerful moments on the new record.

Folklore earned Swift six nominations at the 63rd Grammy Awards, where she is the clear favourite to claim her third Album of the Year title.

If she wins, Swift will join Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon as the only artists to have a trifecta of Album of the Year Grammys.

And she could make it four, given that Evermore will be eligible for the 64th Grammy Awards.

Swift has won previously with 2008 album Fearless and 2014 classic 1989, which made her the first solo female artist to win the top gong twice.

“I’ve never done this before,” she said via a tweet that sent fans into raptures for the second time this year.

“In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released.

“There was something different about Folklore.

“In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning,” she added.

“I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you were welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives.

“So I just kept writing them.”

Head back to thewest.com.au today for Simon Collins’ album review of Taylor Swift’s Evermore or read tomorrow in The West Australian newspaper.