The sea flows through the center cinder wellMusic of. Cadence, the new album from Amelia Baker’s experimental folk project, floats between her two distant oceans. The hazy California coast where she grew up and the wind-torn swells of the West of Ireland she has come to love. Scheduled for release on April 21, 2023 on Free Dirt Records, the album’s name refers to the turbulent cycles of our lives and the uncertain tides that push us back and forth. Recorded at Hen’s studio in Los Angeles’ famous Venice Beach, just a few blocks from her Boardwalk, the songs on “Cadence” seek a sense of grounding and home. The album’s backdrop is California beaches, but Irish influences are also present. The old folklore still looms large in her mind, now tinged with the growth that comes from returning to one’s roots. For “Cadence,” Baker expanded Cinder Well’s sound to include not only percussion, but also trance electric guitar and an expansive string part courtesy of Lankum’s Cormac McDiarmada. While it still retains the doom-folk flavor that Cinder Well is known for, ‘Cadence’ balances heavier lyrics with a more expansive sound reminiscent of LA’s mythical Laurel Canyon days. There is. “A lot of my music was made far from home,” Baker says. “There was something cathartic about recording in California.” Caught between two worlds, “Cadence” finds a way to regain the rhythm of life after a period of deep isolation, finding balance amidst uncertainty. It’s a song about finding something.
Cinder Well’s critically acclaimed previous album ‘No Summer’ was a love letter to her new adopted home in County Clare in the west of Ireland. But as the pandemic receded and she was cut off from the United States by a long period of intense isolation, she knew it was time for her to return home. Returning to her hometown on the central coast of California, she devoted her time and space to honing her creativity, which had been dulled by her isolation. Images of nature, always an important source of inspiration for Cinder Well’s songwriting, return in songs that shine with images of moonlit caves, sharp cliffs, deep purple sunsets, birds, and shadows. To do. The plants growing between rocks in the song “Well on Fire” symbolize resilience, and the cold Atlantic winds in “Gone the Holding” embody the harshness of consequences. “These songs have a sense of being lost in the woods, and I write from there,” Baker explains. “They were written in the process of getting unstuck.”
While reconnecting with home and the ocean and reviving her childhood interest in surfing, Baker also focused more deeply on songwriting, determined to break through the creative blocks she felt. did. She experimented with the electric guitar and worked on new tunings inspired by British folk guitarist Nick Jones, using her downtuned instrument to adapt her music to her own voice. She pored over ’90s New Age classic “The Artist’s Way” and wrote “Overgrown,” her first major-key song in a decade. A chance connection with recording engineer Harlan Steinberger’s Hen House Studio in Venice Beach gave her the perfect opportunity to record in Los Angeles, where she had always dreamed of making an album. In another fortuitous moment, her old friend from high school, Philip Rogers (Haley Heindericks), joins her on drums and collaborates on her arrangements. Participating musicians include bassist Neil Heppleston (Jim Geddy), violist Jake Falvey, and Cormac McDiarmada (Lankham), whose evocative and rich string parts make Cinder Well ‘s transcendental voice is louder than ever. Heavy yet hopeful, “Cadence” transcends the minimalism of Cinder Well’s previous work. It’s spacious, giving her songs bright colors and higher peaks, perhaps reflecting the world outside the studio. “It’s so wild,” she says. “I’m in a quiet sanctuary behind the thick wooden doors of my studio, but when I step outside, I find myself in the chaos of Venice Beach.” Cinder Wells was driving along the scenic Highway 1 along the coast. warmed up for the recording session by singing Joni Mitchell’s “Court and Spark,” then settled into a calming space where they could explore new directions for their music.
The feeling of being suspended between two worlds is subtly but deeply woven throughout Cadence. “I think he was always trying to balance having homes in two places,” Baker says. “I was trying to hold on to both parts of myself.” Cadence is an album about being torn between home and the new land you’ve come to love. It’s about finding acceptance amidst ever-changing tides and reclaiming creativity in times of great personal strife. Now splitting her time between the two West Coasts (Ireland and California), she reflects, “No matter where I am, the ocean is my home.” Perhaps it’s no coincidence that she opens “Cadence” with a song about selkies (seals that transform into humans on land). The shapeshifting selkie is more than just a folk legend, it’s an apt metaphor for Cinder Well itself. The songwriter is connected to the ebb and flow of the ocean, whether it’s on the other side of the world or just a few steps away from her home.