VALLEY MAKER SHARES NEW SINGLE “INSTRUMENT.” TRACK OFF UPCOMING ALBUM WHEN THE DAY LEAVES OUT FEBRUARY 19 VIA FRENCHKISS RECORDS
Photo by Bree Burchfield.
Austin Crane, who records under Valley Maker, has shared a new single “Instrument” which is taken from his upcoming new album When the Day Leaves out February 19 via Frenchkiss Records. The music video, filmed and directed by Joseph Kolean and Zach Gutierrez, incorporates film footage that Austin captured on a Super 8 camera in the North Carolina mountains. They collaborated on the clip for previous single “Mockingbird” and Austin notes, “through mixing mediums and blending human and natural worlds, we wanted the ‘Instrument’ video to visually be in conversation with what we created for ‘Mockingbird,’ and with the landscape of the album cover.” He continues, "I wrote 'Instrument' as a meditation on the challenges of persevering, of loving the world and other people, and of maintaining a hopeful vision for the future in these times we're living through. The uncertain future of our planet, with climate change and related natural disasters, always feels very present for me in these considerations. So the song and video reflect both upon anxieties and affections for our world; they explore what it means to remain a part of it all, to carry on amidst human and elemental uncertainty." Watch the video for “Instrument” here:
Paste included When The Day Leaves in their “most anticipated release of 2021” list and American Songwriter recently chatted with Austin about the making of the LP - read the Q&A here. Valley Maker previously shared “No One Is Missing” and Mockingbird. The tracks have been picked up by, among others, NPR and AV Club.
"Crane’s nimble fingerpicking, fleshed out by Amy Godwin’s celestial backing vocals, carry the ghostly, windswept track across six minutes that explore themes familiar to Valley Maker: memory, nature, the passage of time." AV Club on “Mockingbird”
"It’s a calming, folky rumination about shifting sands, and much like his previous work, 'Mockingbird”'thrives on Crave’s intuitive vocal cadence, subtly accenting words to draw the most passion out of his songs." Paste
"atmospheric rural folk rock." American Songwriter on “No One Is Missing”
“Quavering vocal harmonies and delicate acoustic accents roll through a blissful backcountry scene” The Line Of Best Fit on “No One Is Missing”
"The single incorporates soft acoustic guitars to create a flowing tone through the intro, soft hums floating through the track." MXDWN on “No One Is Missing”
"Crane’s lingering vocals and gentle guitar work create a tone that is nostalgic and meditative...This raw track is deeply beautiful, encouraging its listener to take solace in the fact that no matter what, they are always in motion." Wild Honey Pie on “Mockingbird”
"The track is a smart and heartfelt piece of folk storytelling, that feels rich, vivid, and full of a sense of place and atmosphere." We All Want Someone To Shout For on “Mockingbird”
"Songwriter Austin Crane revives his beloved brand of atmospheric folk and perspicacious modern gospel that reflects on settling back into an old, familiar space and community."
New Commute on “Mockingbird”
"From the heavenly backing vocals to the steady strums of the guitar, ‘No One Is Missing’ there’s a grounding to track that is hearty yet pensive." Abduction Radiation
"The raw ambience of the track offers a calm and refreshing sonic breeze."
Aupium on “No One Is Missing”
Read more about When The Day Leaves:
We have all become experts in the imbalance of uncertainty these days, newly accustomed to canceling plans and tentatively rescheduling them for some future we can only imagine. For Austin Crane—the ruminative songwriter, riveting guitarist, and singular voice —such a sense of uncertainty has emerged as his steadfast companion these last few years, a period of profound transition. This flux is the anchor for the gorgeous and felicitous When the Day Leaves.
Early in 2019, Crane and his wife, Megan, decided it was time to leave Seattle. South Carolina natives, they’d been in Seattle for nearly a decade while he pursued a doctorate in human geography at the University of Washington, and she worked as a midwife. As Summer 2019 ended, they prepared to head east to Columbia, SC, rejoining a deep community of friends and moving into a century-old home in need of big love. Still, major questions loomed: Would they, just then past 30, like it enough to stay, to start a new life? And what did it mean to go home?
Driven as it is by departure, When the Day Leaves marks the arrival of Valley Maker as a trustworthy narrator for these shaky times. Crane synthesizes these complex feelings into today’s single, “No One Is Missing.” All these thoughts are rendered with newfound lyrical richness, balancing intimate tidbits with universal ambiguity.
In the months before recording began, Austin convened with producer Trevor Spencer and longtime harmonizing partner Amy Godwin for sessions in Portland and Seattle, teasing out the album’s interwoven arrangements and meticulous vocal harmonies. Then, in November 2019, Crane decamped from Columbia to the Pacific Northwest for a three-week session in the woods outside of Woodinville, a small town northeast of Seattle at the foot of the Cascades. He stayed in the loft of Spencer’s Way Out Studio, the collaborators sealing themselves off in a horse barn-turned-recording space like kids at summer camp, just as winter’s mist closed in.
The time commitment is a crucial component of When the Day Leaves. For 46 minutes, you feel like you’re sitting with Crane in an intricate, unified sound-world of his design. He offloads his observations about our tangled thicket of hope and fear, aspiration and exasperation.
When the Day Leaves is an uninterrupted sequence of reflections about the generational limbo of being awed by and worried for this world. The anxiety of uncertainty—always part of life but now seemingly omnipresent—can be vexing, a reality these songs acknowledge. Crane, as he sings at one point, is fully “aligned with my blues.” But these songs also affirm that life is an endless opportunity for renewal, for trying again.
Austin Crane has recorded three albums under the name Valley Maker, the most recent being 2018’s Rhododendron which was his first with Frenchkiss Records. He released When I Was A Child in 2015 and his eponymous debut in 2010. He currently lives in Columbia, SC, where he is teaching and writing his PhD dissertation in Human Geography.
Valley Maker When The Day Leaves tracklisting
Branch I Bend
No One Is Missing
Pine Trees
Instrument
Mockingbird
Aberration
Voice Inside The Well
On A Revelation
Freedom
Line Erasing
When The Day Leaves
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