The Unconscious Echo features seven dynamic and original tracks, with moments ranging from Swan Arcade style unaccompanied harmony vocals, to swelling instrumental choruses reminiscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Each piece is a collaborative arrangement of Amelia Baker’s songs, featuring folk and punk veterans of the Pacific Northwest, New Orleans, and Norway. Baker’s lyrics explore themes of loss, empty houses, and generational trauma. The album is dedicated to friends of the band who have passed in recent years. The Unconscious Echo features Amelia Baker on guitar and vocals, Marit Schmidt (Vradiazei, Disemballerina, Sangre De Muerdago) on viola, Mae Kessler (Ekstasis) on violin, Magnus Nymo (Regn, Blackbird Raum) on drums and vocals, Pete Olynciw (Blato Zlato, Blackbird Raum) on upright bass, with a special track featuring CPN of Blackbird Raum on old-time fiddle.
The album was recorded, mixed, and mastered on analog tape by Nich Wilbur at The Unknown Studios. The studio, a former church located in Anacortes, Washington, was founded by Phil Elverum of The Microphones and Mount Eerie. Album art is by Olympia photographer Carter Murdoch.
The Unconscious Echo is released on May 11th, pre-order via Bandcamp https://cinderwell.bandcamp.com/
The Unconscious Echo (+ Track by Track)
Through the Tendons
Credits:
Amelia Baker: resonator guitar, vocals
Magnus Nymo: drums, vocals
Marit Schmidt: viola
Mae Kessler: fiddle
Pete Olynciw: upright bass
Lyrics:
“Nothing but the wind will bring the floor boards back again”
About:
Amelia wrote this song on a banjo alone in a friend’s house in Chimicum, Washington on the last day of a West Coast tour. The landlord had recently restored the house to make it livable again, but before that, it had gone to such disrepair that there were no panes on the windows, no ceiling, and it was entirely inhabited by birds.
Insulation of the Silence
Credits:
Amelia Baker: resonator guitar, vocals
Marit Schmidt: viola
Mae Kessler: fiddle
Pete Olynciw: upright bass
Lyrics:
“I hear a voice from inside me when my mouth is shut
the insulation of the silence, it is the sound within the womb”
Mayn Rue Platz
Credits:
Amelia Baker: vocals, shruti box
Marit Schmidt: vocals
Mae Kessler: fiddle
Lyrics:
“Don’t look for me where birds sing
you will not find me there, my beloved”
About:
Mayn Rue Platz is sung like a ballad in two part harmony over a shruti box drone. It is followed by an original fiddle melody written by Mae Kessler.
The song is adapted from Morris Rosenfeld’s poem “Mayn Rue Platz”, originally written in Yiddish. The poem commemorates victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 in Manhattan, New York City- one of the deadliest industrial disasters in US history. Most of the victims were young Jewish and Italian women who had recently immigrated to New York.
The Hyde Mansion
Credits:
Amelia Baker: resonator guitar, vocals
CPN: fiddle
Lyrics:
“something is burning in rings of water
altars of stolen lace, softly
lay softly”
About:
Featuring Caspian of Blackbird Raum on fiddle. The song is followed by Caspian’s version of the old time tune “Cross Key”, which he got from a field recording of Emma Lee Dickerson.
The Unconscious Echo
Amelia Baker: electric guitar, pump organ, vocals
Marit Schmidt: viola
Mae Kessler: fiddle
Pete Olynciw: upright bass
Lyrics:
“The body holds the sounds of the past they keep echoing
Some of us dream of boats and some of fire
The sound within the womb, a yelling in the veins
The coursing and the pain, the unconscious echo”
About:
The album dips into heavier waters with the introduction of the title track. The song explores generational memory in an analogy to hauntings in a house.
Brittle Bones
Credits:
Amelia Baker: electric guitar, resonator guitar, shruti box, vocals
Magnus Nymo: drums, vocals
Marit Schmidt: viola
Mae Kessler: fiddle
Pete Olynciw: upright bass
Lyrics:
“Your brittle bones like fall leaves
heavy held in mother’s arms
the weight in my arms, heavier than you meant
changed into color of fall leaves”
About:
Brittle Bones is an ode to the late “Hesh” Paul Woods. It is dedicated to Paul’s mother Teri Amick. The song starts with a guitar riff and vocals over simple drones, but builds into the climactic point of the album, in celebration of Paul’s life.
The One to The East and West
Credits:
Amelia Baker: electric guitar, resonator guitar, shruti box, vocals
Magnus Nymo: drums, vocals
Marit Schmidt: viola
Mae Kessler: fiddle
Pete Olynciw: upright bass
Lyrics:
“We are floating up and down
Holding breath and coming up again”
About: The band’s love for 1970’s folk rock is undoubtedly celebrated in the finale track, which concludes in an original tune that brings the listener through the halls of any fiddle gathering.
Cinder Well Tour Dates
May 17 – Ennis at B Art Studio
May 19 – Cork City at a House Concert
May 20 – Dublin at The Cobblestone
May 22 – Limavady at Keady Clachan
May 23 – Belfast at The Sunflower
May 24 – Glasgow at MacNeill’s Bar
May 25 – Edinburgh at Brig Below
May 26 – Inverness at Velocity Cafe
May 27 – Braemar at Braemar Gallery
May 28 – Dundee at Make That a Take Records
May 29 – Sheffield at Regather
May 30 – London at Queens Head
May 31 – Oxford at Truck Store
June 1 – Manchester at Fuel Cafe
June 2 – Liverpool at The Well Space
June 3- Warrington at The Old Townhouse
June 5 – Bristol at Exchange Cafe
Keep an eye on their Facebook for more dates https://www.facebook.com/cinderwell/
Pre-Order The Unconscious Echo via Bandcamp https://cinderwell.bandcamp.com/