Announced: Stella Donnelly – Love and Fortune + ‘Feel It Change’

Stella Donnelly makes a masterful return with the announcement of her new album Love and Fortune. A deeply personal and anchored body of work that traces the journey back to herself after a period of profound change. Recorded in Naarm/Melbourne, the album carries the grounding energy of place, offering a sonic landscape that feels both intimate and expansive. Love and Fortune is due for release on Friday 7 November.

The Naarm-based, Boorloo-raised artist also shares new single ‘Feel It Change’, premiered on Huw Stephens’ BBC 6 Music show it’s the follow-up to last month’s double A-side ‘Baths’/’Standing Ovation’.

Reflecting on the creation of the track, Stella shares, “I wrote this song on a baritone guitar in the shed of my sharehouse, plugged into all of my housemate’s overdrive pedals. I think the neighbours started getting shitty after a while because I stewed on the same chords for ages. It’s about the rumination of slowly peeling off the band-aid of a relationship that was doomed to fall apart. Trying to capture that phase of a break up where all you do is bristle and fizz in resentment and finger pointing.”

After several intense years on the road, Donnelly stepped away from touring to re-evaluate her relationship with music and to ask whether she still loved it. That quiet pause led to a deeper listening: to her instincts, her emotions, and the many past versions of herself. What emerged is a collection of songs shaped by multiple endings: the dissolving of relationships, of hobbies started but never continued, the closing of chapters and the echo of things that once felt permanent. These are breakup songs, but not just of the romantic kind. They mark a shedding of skins, a release of old expectations, and a cautious openness to what might come next. The artwork by Sam Love, shows a person held back by fear, unsure whether to dive back into music and the messy whirlpool of public songwriting.

“These songs wouldn’t leave me alone,” Donnelly says. “Like seagulls, they screamed at me when I rode to work, they pecked at me while I wrote essays, and they stole my chips the second I thought I was happier without music.”

Donnelly arrives at a starker sound that lays bare the individual behind the artist. Love and Fortune blends pianos and guitars, as in her earlier work, but this time the arrangements are more exposed, more intentional. Joining Donnelly on the record are longtime collaborators and friends Marcel Tussie, Jack Gaby and Julia Wallace and new guests Sophie Ozard, Timothy Harvey, and Ellie Mason.

Stream / download ‘Feel It Change’ here.
Pre-order / pre-save Love and Fortune here.