CRONIN, CLAIRE: Came Down A Storm CD
Claire Cronin "Came Down A Storm" CD (Ba Da Bing)
Came Down a Storm is an album that creates a world. Through Claire
Cronin’s deep, intimate voice come songs of wreckage and redemption. A
published poet and English Ph.D. student as well as a musician, Cronin
uses images and symbols to craft songs that reach beyond the personal.
She sings of death in a field, death at sea, dreams of dying, and a
vision of a future where death is no longer allowed. Yet the music is
not depressing; even in its darkest lines, these songs aim to float. The
album is a collaboration between Cronin and Deerhoof guitarist John
Dieterich, who met by chance at a Los Angeles show and began writing
songs together long-distance. After sending recordings and ideas back
and forth over email for a year, Cronin joined Dieterich at his house in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, to record Came Down a Storm. It was mixed with
Jay Pellici at New, Improved Recordings in Oakland, California, where
the full instrumentation was put in place. The album features Pellici
and Chris Vatalaro on drums and Ezra Buchla and Heather Trost on
strings. The spare, melancholy style of
Cronin’s previous self-released work is evident in this album, but the
music created with Dieterich takes Came Down a Storm beyond the folk
genre. Cronin’s voice recalls Karen Dalton or Jason Molina in its
sincerity and ache—plaintive and burnished with a kind of dark gold
throughout. The instruments build around her singing: breaking to
crescendos, driving emotional currents, or providing lively counterpoint
to the lyric’s funereal themes.
Tracklist:
1. The Unnatural
2. In The Field
3. Valentine
4. Meet Me Undertakers
5. Dark Water
6. Dreamt the Sea
