Cinder Well - Cadence

by Zena Grieg

published: 30 / 8 / 2023

Label: Free Dirt Records
Format: CD

intro

Kaleidoscopic and evocative new album from Cinder Well, the project of Los Angeles experimental folk artist Amelia Baker

A new album by experimental folk artist Amelia Baker aka Cinder Well has just come out. Recorded at Harlan Steinberger’s Hen House studio by Venice Beach, Los Angeles, close to where Well was raised, ‘Cadence’ is a musical kaleidoscope of different landscapes, traditions, juxtaposing experiences of isolation and connection, the setting ranging from California, where she grew up, to the windswept, Western Irish County of Clare she came to love. Recurrent themes include duality, love and loss and the transitoriness of life, set against wistful lyrics and a melancholy, brooding, mythological sonic backdrop, an overriding leitmotif the ocean. Songs to listen out for in this nine-track collection include: the opener ‘Two Heads, Grey Mare’, a shape-shifting song about selkies (seals) which transform themselves into humans on dry land, highlighting the ephemeral nature of life; the delicate ‘Overgrown’ with its soaring strings, overshadowed by the inevitability of death: “I do know more slowly we will ramble/Those strong bones of us more fickle/Slow too the thoughts/The speed at which they pace/Gaps between to widen and erase”; the lilting ‘Returning’ with its circling guitar and plaintive fiddle; the moody, hypnotic title song, bringing out the powerful ‘timbre of Well’s voice; the emotive, enigmatic ‘Well on Fire’ with its stark, ultimately hopeful lyrics: ”The well on fire/If it’ll grow in the cracks then/It’ll grow in the water……/I am close to it now/I am closer somehow”; the mournful, rhythmically compelling ‘Gone the Holding’; and the closer, the piano-led, elegiac ‘I Will Close in the Moonlight’, bringing the album to a cathartic conclusion. Created soon after Well’s 2020 acclaimed last record, ‘No Summer’, 'Cadence' is an evocative lyrical journey which leaves a lasting impression.

Track Listing:-

1 Two Heads, Grey Mare
2 Overgrown
3 Returning
4 Cadence
5 Well on Fire
6 Crow
7 Gone the Holding
8 A Scorched Lament
9 I Will Close in the Moonlight

Band Links:-

https://cinderwellmusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/cinderwell
https://twitter.com/cinder_well
https://cinderwell.bandcamp.com/

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features

Under the Radar (2020)

'Under the Radar' uncovers a groundbreaking new album from one of the forerunners of the new underground roots music movement. Keith How finds Cinder Well’s 'No Summer' a lo-fi masterpiece, which is both reverential and beautiful.