Sandhill Crane Erisy Watt

• 1 Sandhill Crane 03:15
• 2 Tear Apart 03:41
• 3 Arrows 04:25
• 4 Anywhere With You 03:49
• Total Runtime 15:10

Info for Sandhill Crane

„Ihre Musik ist neben Joni Mitchell, Norah Jones und ihresgleichen eine Übung darin, wie sich die Spitze des heutigen Folk anhört“, schrieb No Depression über die in Nashville aufgewachsene Singer-Songwriterin und Multi-Instrumentalistin Erisy Watt (Gesang, Gitarre, Banjo), die mittlerweile in Portland lebt. Deren ausdrucksstarken Songs erzählen von der Schönheit und Freiheit wilder und magischer Orte. Der Drang nach Abenteuer lässt sich in jedem Song des kürzlich erschienenen Debütalbums „Paints In The Sky“ spüren, das in einem kleinen Bergdorf in Oregon aufgenommen wurde. Erisys Album ist eine Huldigung an die kalifornischen Redwoods, abgelegene indonesische Inseln und all die Menschen, die sie auf ihren Wegen trifft.

„Ich habe alles mitgeschrieben“, sagt die Musikerin Erisy Watt über die Veränderungen, die das Jahr 2023 für sie bereithielt, ‚die Vorfreude, den Umbruch und die Nachwirkungen‘. In einer kurzen Zeitspanne trat Erisy in ein neues Jahrzehnt ein, verlor einen geliebten Menschen, erlebte das Ende einer Beziehung, flog um die halbe Welt, um in entlegenen Regionen Thailands und Indonesiens zu arbeiten, kehrte nach Hause zurück, packte ihr Leben in Portland zusammen und zog nach Los Angeles. „Jeden Morgen mit Stift, Papier und Gitarre an meinem Schreibtisch zu sitzen, während ich mich auf solch unebenem Terrain bewegte, erlaubte mir, zu verarbeiten und mich geerdeter zu fühlen.“

Erisy Watt

Erisy Watt
Erisy’s sound reliably alludes to iconic vocalists of the 1960s, but here, finds a more fitting home in the vintage-tinged indie ether of Bedouine, Haley Heynderickx, or Julie Byrne. Her vocals are intimate and alluring, an artful alternation between soothing whispers and gentle howls, backed by an instrumental bigness that evokes windy mountainscapes and piercing blue skies. Throughout Eyes like the Ocean, Erisy calls upon the expanse of earth and sky to navigate life as an adult woman—satiating restlessness, finding connection, and fostering that ever elusive sense of self that allows one peace.

Erisy Watt grew up in Nashville, but it wasn’t until she left the city of music for college in California that she began writing her own songs. Both of these formative settings are present in her creative instinct—Nashville’s knack for a timeless melody, California’s bewildering vastness and dusty free spirit—but upon these sonic bones lives a body of global adventure. Erisy is an environmental professional with a deep fondness for nature, and has spent time in eclectic locales like Nepal, Thailand, and Hawaii, most often in rugged, remote wilderness. She approaches the music profession with a similar sense of purity; she once toured Europe on foot, banjo on her back. This wide-open way of moving through a capacious planet enlivens Erisy’s music with true troubadour soul. Her songs spring not so much from one place in particular as from a series of well worn travel journals.

This stretch of inspiration calls for acute musical capacity, and fortuitously, Erisy no doubt knows what she’s doing. An accomplished multi-instrumentalist, she can walk up and down a fretboard in gymnastic jazz chords, craft complex guitar patterns in a wide range of tempos, and masterfully press her vocal performances past previous limits. In the midst of recording her debut album in 2018, Erisy underwent surgery to remove a problematic polyp on her vocal cord. While the diagnosis and procedure proved traumatic, Erisy discovered a new vocal freedom in the healing process. Today, she describes the feeling of being uninhibited, both physically and creatively, as integral to her artistic evolution. The transformation is most palpable on crossover hit "Big Sky," one of Erisy's oldest songs, which she polished to shine.

On Eyes like the Ocean, Erisy lets her newly liberated talent shimmer, but her real art is in connection: tracing the invisible vessels between an ocean’s black depth and a mountain peak’s twinkling tip, tracking the slow immensity of glacial paths to the monstrous canyons they carve. She ties her insides to the outside, taking tips from the cosmos, a naturalist with a knapsack of stardust, making luminescent the dark parts of her path, finding a way forward.

This album contains no booklet.