Album Notes

CD:Sail Away

Canadian singer-songwriter, Eva Tree (Ay-vah), has just released her second full length CD, Sail Away. Her introspective and hauntingly beautiful songs liken her to other pared down confessional singers like Beth Orton, Fiest, and Australian crossover-country singer, Kasey Chambers.

The instrumentation of guitars, mandolin, dobro and accordion infuse the album with a sepia sun-drenched old-time mountain sound which charms with its back porch simplicity and complete lack of pretension.

The singing is raw and unadorned to a stripped down beauty, and most choruses are complimented by producer Jude Davison. His harmonies add a warmth of tone that combine with Eva’s vocal to create a complexity and sweetness of sound which is right at the crossroads where heart-yearning melancholy meets joyful.

Eva Tree hearkens from the same deep mountain woods of British Columbia as The Be Good Tanyas. She often crossed musical paths with Sam Parton and Frazey Ford (of The BGT’s) as she honed her music at tree planting camps, living rooms and open mics throughout Canada. The song, That’s Alright, called out for Frazey’s breathy harmony, and so Eva and her ensemble drove the recording gear up to Vancouver and completed the recording there. In a moment of inspiration, Eva also called on another of Vancouver’s emerging groups, The No Sh*t Shirleys. In a wonderfully raucous familial flurry (one of The Shirleys is Eva’s sister) some fantastic harmonies were recorded on the album’s closing track, Heavy Load, giving it a blues-gospel feel. Eva’s father, poet Blake Parker, is also featured on this hand-clapping, foot-stomping track.

What’s exciting about this album is that the songs were written to interweave with the radio/video script, The Princess and the Kid, a post-modern fairytale/myth written by her father, Blake Parker. Tree says that “by immersing myself into Blake’s poetic and fantastical narrative, I found a voice for new and unique characters. The project was incredibly liberating and enabled me to really sing into the songs and make them my own in a way I had not before.”

Eva had the rather unusual experience of growing up in a house with no bathroom or electricity as part of a raggle-taggle community of artistic hippie-gypsies. While working on this project, she says “I suddenly and all at once discovered my history and heritage through fascinated eyes, and found a wealth of songwriting material. This project opened a geyser in me, and the songs continue to flow. With Sail Away, I’m attempting to integrate the old with the new, have a slow dance with melody, and tell stories while I do it. “

For the full story check out www.evatree.com