Squirrel Flower
Tournée
-
30/012020Les 4 ÉclusesDunkerque
-
04/052022Le Hasard LudiqueParis
Ella O’Connor Williams, aussi connue sous le nom de Squirrel Flower, est née le 11 août 1996, le jour le plus chaud de l’année. Ayant grandi au sein d’une famille de musiciens qui travaillaient dur, elle a développé un amour de la musique et s’est lancée dans sa propre voie musicale. Enfant, Williams a adopté l’alter ego de Squirrel Flower. Quelques années plus tard, elle commence à chanter avec le Boston Children’s Chorus et étudie la théorie musicale tout en apprenant elle-même à jouer de la guitare. Adolescente, elle découvre la scène musicale DIY de Boston et commence à écrire, enregistrer et interpréter ses propres chansons, reprenant ainsi le nom de Squirrel Flower. La musique de Squirrel Flower est éthérée et chaleureuse, jaillissant d’une profondeur émotionnelle dans laquelle l’auditeur peut entrer comme dans un bain chaud.
Planet (i) est la suite de I Was Born Swimming de 2020, pour lequel Mojo l’a décrite comme « l’une des nouvelles artistes les plus engageantes de 2020 » et elle a été nommée « One To Watch » par The Observer. Planet (i) est un monde entièrement créé par Williams. Le titre lui est venu d’abord comme une blague : c’est le nom qu’elle a inventé pour la nouvelle planète que les gens vont inévitablement coloniser et détruire après avoir quitté la Terre, ainsi que l’univers imaginé dans sa musique. Le disque est une lettre d’amour au désastre sous toutes ses formes imaginables – ces chansons embrassent pleinement une planète en ruine. Porté par sa vision inébranlable et propulsé par sa voix de comète brûlante, Planet (i) est à la fois un refuge, un acte d’auto-guérison et un reflet musical des mondes intérieur et extérieur de Squirrel Flower. Williams a écrit la plupart des chansons de Planet (i) avant la pandémie de COVID-19, mais la catastrophe est omniprésente dans son ADN.
English
Ella O’Connor Williams, also known as Squirrel Flower, was born on August 11th 1996, the hottest day of the year, still inside of a translucent caul sac membrane, surrounded by amniotic fluid. Born with a membrane between her and the rest of the world, yet still very much connected to and dependent on a larger life force. It’s this origin story that inspired the name of Squirrel Flower’s new album I Was BornSwimming.Williams comes from a deep-rooted musical family tree. Her grandparents were classical musicians who lived in the Gate Hill Co-op, an artistic cooperative from upstate New York that grew out of BlackMountain College. Ella’s father, Jesse Williams, spent most of his life as a touring jazz and blues performer and educator, and lends his bass playing to the album (listen for his smooth solo on“Headlights”). Growing up in a family of hard working musicians fostered a love of music and startedWilliams down her own musical path. As a child, Williams adopted the alter ego of Squirrel Flower. A couple years later, she began singing with the Boston Children’s Chorus while studying music theory and teaching herself to play the guitar. As a teen, she discovered the Boston DIY and folk music scenes and began writing, recording, and performing her own songs, now returning to the name Squirrel Flower as her chosen moniker. By the time Williams had begun performing live, recording and touring she was already well on her way to the signature artful song craft heard on the album.Squirrel Flower’s music is ethereal and warm, gushing with emotional depth that the listener can step into like a warm bath. The band on I Was Born Swimming plays with delicate intention, keeping the arrangements natural and light. The album was tracked live, with few overdubs, at The Rare Book RoomStudio in New York City with producer Gabe Wax (Adrienne Lenker, Palehound, Cass McCombs). The musicians were selected by Wax and folded themselves into the songs effortlessly. At the heart of the album lives Williams’ massive, haunted vibrating voice and melancholic, soulful guitar playing. The sounds expand and contract over diverse moods, cutting loose on the heavier riffs of “Red Shoulder” or“Streetlight Blues,” both recorded in her hometown of Boston, and holding back with atmospheric restraint on “Seasonal Affective Disorder” or “Belly Of The City”.I Was Born Swimming begins with an Iowa drive down I-80 and continues to travel, poetically, between her college town of Grinnell Iowa, Boston, MA and New York City where the album was recorded.Throughout the 12 songs, landscapes change and relationships shift, “There’s so much in the record about movement and stagnation. Feeling stuck, needing to move, needing to stay still, swimming, falling, running, growing, etc etc.” said Williams. The album’s lyrics feel like effortless expressions of exactly the way it feels to change — abstract, sad and hopeful.Williams eventually returns to the image of her in the sac; born swimming, knowing how to exist, love herself, and not needing anyone else to do it for her.