Squirrel Flower

Squirrel Flower – Tomorrow’s Fire (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 21, 2023 · Comments off

After the spacious meditation of “I Don’t Use a Trash Can,” Ella Williams kicks her ennui into full gear on “Full Time Hobby,” its slow, chugging groove underpinning the “can’t win” hopelessness of the lyrics. These two songs introduce Tomorrow’s Fire, Williams’ third label release under the name Squirrel Flower. Produced by Alex Farrar and featuring members of Bon Iver, Wednesday, and the War on Drugs, the album’s feeling of overcast turbulence dovetails neatly with the sweet, yawning melodies that are one of Williams’ trademarks. Boston-bred, but with an appreciation for the Midwest, her early releases recalled the winter plains of Iowa where she went to college. Tomorrow’s Fire also turns to the Midwest for inspiration, namely the Indiana Dunes, a majestic stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline east of Chicago, abutted on either side by the steel mills of Gary and the Nipsco Power Plant of Michigan City. Fans of Squirrel Flower’s woeful-yet-winsome songwriting won’t be surprised by her rustbelt fascination. Her music is full of such juxtapositions. Like her two prior albums, Tomorrow’s Fire is at once radiant and grungy, introspective and cathartic, hot and cold. Standout “Alley Light” is a daydreaming paean to escape while “Stick” refuses change at great cost. Simmering desire makes itself known in the hushed “Almost Pulled Away” and the mighty “Canyon,” a common theme strung between two sonic poles. All of it is cloaked in a fug of fuzzed-out guitars and echo, yet no amount of rugged texture can dim the purity of Williams’ dulcet voice. Tomorrow’s Fire may be the most melancholic of Squirrel Flower’s albums, but its sense of drama is captivating. – Timothy Monger

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Squirrel Flower – Planet (i) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 7, 2023 · Comments off

On her sophomore album as Squirrel Flower, Boston native Ella O’Connor Williams leans into a sprawl of emotional chaos, dispatching demons and riding out the storm with a mercurial sense of curiosity. As a toponym, Planet (i) refers to a combination of spirit and place; that of her own self as well as the world at large. Themes of personal, meteorological, and environmental disaster scud like silver clouds over the album’s panoramic arrangements in a tenuous, but pleasingly textural way. Recorded in the U.K. by producer Ari Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius), Williams’ already melancholic indie rock takes on some of the hazy grit that hangs like an aural patina over Bristol’s legendary music scene. Where her 2020 debut seemed almost celestial in its moodiness, Planet (i) is rooted and decidedly earthbound. The thrilling “Hurt a Fly” ripples with electricity and light while songs like “Roadkill” and the sprawling “Night” are all gravity as if wrought from deep mineral deposits and stone. A number of the tracks, though, are quite gentle, bearing a woolen sadness that is quite affecting. “I saw a hummingbird face down in the water,” sings Williams in an airy half-whisper, imbuing the lovely “Deluge in the South” with heartbreaking imagery. The sparse “Desert Wildflowers,” on the other hand, is quietly defiant in its eerie uplift. Like Squirrel Flower’s debut, Planet (i) is a journey through an ever-changing landscape and marks a noticeable creative step forward for Williams. – Timothy Monger

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