Track By Track: Valley Maker - 'When The Day Leaves'
Valley Maker talks to us about his fourth studio album ‘When The Day Leaves’ - track by track.
Branch I Bend
This track felt right as the album opener, sonically and lyrically. I wrote this song about how we make sense of the passing of time through different seasons of life; and the song is structured cyclically in relation to this theme. The first line of the song, “hold on, day, don’t cut me loose,” speaks to the album title (and final track on the record), When The Day Leaves – providing a lyrical bookending, of sorts, for the record. I always aim for the first song on my albums to create an environment that brings the listener into the world of the record. Here, I feel like Amy Godwin’s vocals, together with Morgan Henderson’s flute and clarinet parts, create a space for this song that harkens the sonic terrain of the album to come. I think a lot about landscape when I’m approaching a recording session, and to me, the song’s production feels related to the forests in the Pacific Northwest: how the clouds and fog will hang around the tops of the trees, with abundant ferns and moss cover underneath.
No One Is Missing
This is one of the more driving, groove-oriented tracks on the record. Trevor Spencer (producer/engineer) and I wanted this one to build dynamically up to the third and final verse in a way that felt like a satisfying arrival. I think Trevor’s bass part does a lot for realizing that trajectory, as do Amy’s vocal harmonies. I wrote this song and album during a period of significant change and transition in my life, so my own experiences of leaving and returning home – whether as a touring musician, or via my recent move from Seattle, WA to Columbia, SC – are certainly an inspiration for this track. At a broader level though, this song ruminates on how human connection always exists tenuously in relation to time and place. The line “love is over // taking me” is a nod to Arthur Russell, whose work provided a lot of inspiration for me in writing this record.
Pine Trees
I wrote this song over five years ago, and I honestly was unsure about including it on the record when we began tracking. However, one day in the studio, I was playing the song’s guitar progression and Chris Icasiano set in on the drum part that begins the track. It completely changed my perspective on the song, production-wise, and the track ended up being one of my favorites on the record – a shining example of why I’m grateful to have collaborated with imaginative musicians like Chris on this album! Lyrically, this song is about growing up in the area I’m from, in which Pine Trees are plentiful, and the ever-evolving sense of belief and mystery which that upbringing imparted to me.
Instrument
Instrument is a song about loving the world and trying to maintain a hopeful vision for the future, despite the present socio-political climate and the endangered future of our planet. The song expresses a desire to remain a part of it all, to carry on amidst both human and environmental uncertainty. Production-wise, we wanted this track to feel in the world of Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush – establishing a loose groove that maintains enough space in the verses to make the chorus feel elevated, dynamically. My songs don’t often have such defined choruses, so it felt like we should lean into it! I love how Casey Wescott’s piano part brings a certain momentum to this track.
Mockingbird
I wrote this song in the days after moving to South Carolina from Seattle (and a couple weeks before I began recording this album), in a moment where I was sitting with a lot of questions about the upcoming season of my life. Even before the pandemic set in, I was already planning to take a break from touring for a while, in order to record this album, work on writing my PhD dissertation, and get settled into our new home and life here. One of the first things I did upon moving here was to plant a tree in our new house’s front yard; and there's a line in the song that speaks to how I'll "sit for a while and watch it grow.” This was in late-2019, only a few months before the pandemic set in – so when I wrote the song, I had no idea just how long I would be doing that! I’d say “Mockingbird” is one of my favorite songs I’ve written, perhaps because it encapsulates that transitional moment in my life, and meditates on the journey leading up to that place in time. It’s a six minute song, so there’s time to reflect on the missing and the memories, the newness and anticipation, the feeling in-between and the uncertainty about what comes next. I’m really happy with how beautifully Trevor dialed in the guitar sound on this track. We aimed to keep the production treatments open and dynamic on this one, orbiting around the guitar and vocals, and giving them space to unfold.
Aberration
This one was really fun to record, and is definitely one of my favorites on the album, guitar and production-wise. This is another track where Morgan’s clarinet and bass clarinet parts, together with Amy’s vocals, create a special environment for the song to live in. From a songwriting standpoint, “Aberration” engages the troubling reality of how darkness and anger are so prevalent as a motivating force for the violent, exclusionary politics we see today (at the time of writing, embodied by the Trump administration), as in the lyric: “what do we do with the mad that won’t end?” In that context, I guess I wrote this song about trying to find light in the darkness and often finding oneself disoriented. Because of this, we wanted the track to embody a certain tension or unsettledness in its production, structured by a heavily swung rhythm section (we drew some inspiration from Dylan’s Desire album here).
Voice Inside The Well
I see this track as a continuation from “Aberration,” thematically and production-wise. I wrote this song a few years ago in my Seattle apartment. My wife, Megan, had just given me what is now my favorite guitar for my birthday (incredibly kind of her), and the main progression of this song was the first thing I played on it – almost like the guitar was holding it in keeping for me. I always enjoy experimenting with loud/soft dynamics, and how that creates a sense of space in recordings. For this track, we wanted the verses to home in on the guitar and vocals, and then for the choruses and instrumental breaks to have a louder, more expansive feel. The back and forth between these dynamics seemed to align with the song’s lyrics, which speak to the socially/politically fractured moment we’re living through and wonder if there’s a way we can still meet one another.
On A Revelation
This is the other song, along with “Mockingbird,” that I wrote after my move to SC, right before recording. It’s the sole electric guitar-based song on the record, and is definitely the loudest track on the album (even featuring a guitar solo!) – but this wasn’t necessarily the goal up front, we were just following where the song wanted to go. I wrote “On A Revelation” as a reflection on different revelatory moments, places and memories in my life, from swimming to swamps to a car wreck in Minneapolis. I love how Alina To’s violin parts form a bridge between the track’s many verses. I feel like Amy’s singing really leans into her Georgia roots on this track in a special way (I first met Amy in Georgia at show we were both on the bill of, way back when we both were in college). Of all the tracks on the record, I would say this feels the most “southern” to me; and in general, I’m happy with how this album feels sonically in touch with both regions of the Pacific Northwest and Southeastern US.
Freedom
We took a relatively straight-forward approach to recording this one, centered on guitar and vocals, which felt like what the song was calling for. That being said, Abbey Blackwell’s upright bass part was key to how the track came together. Chloe Rowlands and Willem de Koch’s trumpet and trombone parts also bring a subtle elevating texture to the choruses. I love how Abbey’s bowed upright part imaginatively interacts with Amy’s vocals in the instrumental break, creating a swirling, contemplative moment as the record moves toward its conclusion. I wrote this song after a near-death experience hiking (the “earth fell out beneath my feet” lyric is quite literal), so the lyrics reflect on ideas of being alive, gratitude and, of course, freedom.
Line Erasing
This song was approached similarly to “Instrument”, production-wise, in that we wanted it to have a band-driven, loose-grooving feel. I wrote this song as a reflection on borders: the lines we draw between places and lives, how borders work on our minds, and how borders condition the way we see the world and one another. I wanted the recording to have a certain buoyancy and persistence that balanced out the heaviness of the lyrics. Chloe and Willem’s trumpet and trombone parts are an important presence in this song here, particularly as it builds towards the end.
When The Day Leaves
We wanted this track to have an almost hymn-like quality, as a guitar-vocals duet between Amy and myself, atop Casey’s low-lying organ part. I’ve long been inspired by Gillian Welch, and we were channeling the unadorned beauty and gravity of her recordings in approaching this song. This track is one of my favorites on the record, and lyrically I think it makes sense as the title track for a few interrelated reasons. The title phrase “When The Day Leaves” implies an impending heaviness or darkness, which certainly feels resonant with the times we're living in. In another way, and perhaps as a counter-balance, the sunset moment when the day leaves is a beautiful place to rest momentarily. Here, the song reflects a memory from my favorite park in Seattle: “I'm walking with you // it's precisely when the day leaves // and the tops of the trees look frozen in a painting // and I wait there". Finally, as this song moves through different memories, relationships and experiences in my life, it speaks to the cyclicality of time, to endings and beginnings – and that feels like a good place to conclude in relation to where we began.