Back in 2018, we had the pleasure in premiering the album ‘The Unconscious Echo’ by Cinder Well, the brainchild of singer and multi-instrumentalist Amelia Baker. On July 24th the follow-up ‘No Summer‘ will be released via Free Dirt Records.
Cinder Well is at the vanguard of a different kind of transatlantic folk revival, one forged amidst the uncertainty of a global pandemic. However, Irish-based American songwriter Amelia Baker’s music isn’t nihilistic; instead, it strips traditional forms to their bones, creating a meditative, trance-like space for sonic healing.
A member of anarchist folk project Blackbird Raum (featured here), Baker’s time on the circuit with Irish trad-punk group LANKUM eventually led her to a small settlement in County Clare, and to the rich dissonance of her music as Cinder Well, a dissonance caught between worlds and histories.
No Summer unfolds slowly, thoughtfully, like a poem in the journal of a traveler. But these songs are not meant to be paens to loneliness, in fact the inspiration behind many of them came from the drive to share music, to connect with people. Baker came to Ireland for its rich pub scene, where each night master musicians cram into corner pubs to play tunes and sing songs. Searching for material to share in these sessions, she looked back to America, to the roots music that first inspired her. There she found a commonality between the two worlds, a way to reckon geography and time through song.
To create No Summer, Baker sought out Nich Wilbur (Black Belt Eagle Scout, Angel Olsen) of “The Unknown” studio in Anacortes, WA. This studio in a converted church is known for its work with The Microphones and Mount Eerie, and its quiet nature gave Baker space to explore the songs. “I was sleeping in the church,” she says “and it felt haunted, but it gave me this incredible experience of being really focused. I was listening to David Lynch’s audiobook about creativity every night. I was in a zone where I had a very clear image of what I wanted to capture in the sound and the story of it.”
Baker’s songs parse these transatlantic traditions, and throughout, her remarkable voice cuts to the bone like some ghostly ballad singer bound to sing these words from here to eternity.
We’ll be bringing you more on this release soon, in the meantime follow Cinder Well:
https://www.facebook.com/cinderwell/
https://www.instagram.com/cinder_well/
https://twitter.com/cinder_well
http://cinderwellmusic.com/
Photo Credit: Jim Ghedi