Cinder Well - No Summer (Free Dirt)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

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WHAT WE SAY:

The cloud covered skies & rain soaked hills of Ireland seem to suit Californian Cinder Well, as with brutal, but not uncaring honesty, she cuts through the post truth bullshit on one of 2020's most striking folk albums for Free Dirt Records.

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WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

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WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

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 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. The sparse soundscapes and haunting stillnesses of her new album 'No Summer' (coming July 24 on Free Dirt Records) are not meant to be paens to loneliness. Rather, Baker was inspired by the rich musical connectivity of the pub scene in Ireland, and her move from California to County Clare to study traditional music of the region. A member of anarchist folk project Blackbird Raum, 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. Recorded by Nich Wilbur (Black Belt Eagle Scout, Angel Olsen), the original songs on 'No Summer' boldly rub shoulders with careful reworkings of traditional Appalachian sources. 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. From the eerily prophetic title track—which presaged a season of canceled shows—to “Our Lady’s”’s imagined stories of spectral abandoned asylum residents, No Summer is as haunting as it is connected, as dark as it is sacred, a kind of ritual healing that’s existed through the ages.  
CreditsProduced by Amelia Baker 
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Nich Wilbur at The Unknown in Anacortes, Washington 
Photos by Jim Ghedi and Amelia Baker 
Design by Dan MacDonald Studios 

Amelia Baker - vocals, guitar, organ, and fiddle on track 7 
Marit Schmidt - viola and vocals 
Mae Kessler - violin and vocals 

All songs written by Amelia Baker (ASCAP) except “Wandering Boy,” “The Cuckoo,” and “Queen of the Earth, Child of the Skies,” which are traditional.


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