On Left Hand, Mancari offers the listener a collection of songs that should be played in moments when we are in need of reassurance and encouragement. No song exemplifies this better than the ebullient track “Over And Over,” shared today as the album’s first single. The song, which features Julien Baker on backing vocals, is a reminder to friends that happiness doesn’t need to be fleeting. “I wanted to write a queer pop song that has meat on its bones,” Mancari says. Inspired by one of many reckless and joyful hangs with dear friends in Nashville, and exemplified in the euphoric Min Soo Park-directed video, the enlivening pop song makes a promise to them, and to the greater community Mancari embraces on this album. “There is something to the feeling/ Head hanging out of the window/ Being ok that we don’t know,” sung on the chorus over an infectious beat replete with congas and shakers. What follows is a promise to anyone who ever feels like the greatest moments of their life are disappearing in the rearview: “We can have it like we used to, over and over and over and over again.”

Becca Mancari made their most recent live appearance with Hayley Williams of Paramore at Love Rising, Nashville’s all-star LGBTQ+ benefit, also featuring Sheryl Crow, Maren Morris, Jason Isbell, Allison Russell, Brittany Howard and more. Coming up, Mancari is touring with Joy Oladokun this September.

09/10 – Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall*

09/12 – Kansas City, MO – The Truman*

09/13 – St. Louis, MO – Delmar Hall*

09/19 – Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel*

09/20 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle*

09/22 – Charlotte, NC – The Underground*

09/23 – Charlottesville, VA – Jefferson Theater*

09/24 – Washington, DC – The Howard*

*supporting Joy Oladokun

Since moving to Nashville to start their music career in 2012, Becca Mancari has been lauded for their dextrous songwriting and prodigious guitar playing. Their sophomore album The Greatest Part, released in 2020, was an indie rock opus that garnered acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, and more. After its release, however, Mancari was in despair. An illness in their family, coupled with a realization that their alcohol dependency had become untenable, led Mancari to begin the hard work of taking ownership of their existence by mending broken relationships and investing in their mental health.

“I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, I was a passenger in my own life,” Mancari says. The transformative period of self-reckoning was the catalyst that ultimately steered Mancari to write and produce their triumphant new album, Left Hand. “Producing this record was life-giving. It was scary, at first, to be trusted with this role, but I knew I’d only gain more agency and strength over my career through the process,” Mancari says. Insecurities that had dogged Mancari since childhood couldn’t weather the force of energy in that studio, where they executed decisions with newfound certainty and confidence that permeate each song.

Throughout the album’s twelve tracks, Mancari asserts a radical self-acceptance. Left Hand is named for the Mancari family crest from the Italian region of Calabria in which a left hand holds a dagger aloft. After a lifetime spent feeling like they didn’t belong, Mancari unlocked a perfect metaphor in the crest: “In many cultures children born with a dominant left hand were taught not to use that hand, and were told that using the right hand was ‘normal’ and ‘correct.’ Similarly, queer children are often times told that it’s not ‘normal’ for them to love who they love and that they need to ‘change.’”