Cinder Well is the concept of singer/songwriter Amelia Baker, a native Californian who currently resides in Ireland’s County Clare, and her album No Summer is an absorbing album that explores isolation and the type of uncomfortable loneliness that inspires profound, heavy insights or on the flip-side, the corrosive anxiety of the times. Produced and largely written by Baker, the LP was recorded in a converted church in Washington state, and also finds her singing and playing guitar, organ, and a bit of fiddle. The only other musicians are on the album are Marit Schmidt (Ekstasis) on viola and Mae Kessler (Ekstasis) on violin, whose efforts underscore the stark beauty of Baker’s performance. Essentially, No Summer is an album of sparse folk soundscapes and filled with haunting stillness and beauty. Album highlights include: a version of Roscoe Holcomb’s “Wandering Boy”; the somber Jean Ritchie tune “The Cuckoo”; a lilting adaptation of fiddler Eden Hammons’ instrumental “Queen of the Earth, Child of the Skies”; the mournful “Fallen”; a tale of spectral abandoned asylum residents on “Our Lady’s”; and the gentle closing track “From Behind the Curtain” – a letter from Ireland to a friend in need back in the States. Amelia Baker’s No Summer is as austere and deeply melancholic as it is haunting and beautiful. – Written by JFelton
SIMILAR | Samantha Crain, S.G. Goodman, Jason Molina, A.A. Williams, Jess Williamson