Van Etten new album, pub deal

THERE THERE: Sharon Van Etten’s just-released Are We There (Jagjaguwar) may well be the best-reviewed indie album of 2014, drawing raves from the likes of Will Hermes in Rolling Stone (“magnificent,” four stars), Jon Pareles in The New York Times and Stephen Deusner on Pitchfork. That doesn’t necessarily get you a hit album, but it’ll help an act fill venues and fill her wallet with a publishing advance, in this case from Big Deal Music, which announced the deal yesterday. Van Etten joins fellow recent signees Ray LaMontagne and St. Vincent at the indie pubco. Says Big Deal's Dave Ayers, who did the signing, "Sharon is one of the most riveting and distinctive voices working today. It's a voice that will carry for a long, long time, and we're committed to doing everything we can to help make sure of that." (5/28a)