On her new full length Wild In The Hollow, Andrea Baker infuses her wide-open Americana with elegant touches of Jazz-flecked Honkey-Tonk and good ol’ fashioned Rock and Roll. A spirited storyteller with a cowgirl’s gaze, Baker and her top-flight band weave together a reeling tale of both suffering and hope; chasing the idea of “home” with a graceful, elegant confidence. Glowing with a resonant warmth, the record’s polished precision is tempered by a weathered edge that results in a sound as timeless as Baker’s whisky-kissed voice.
Baker cut her musical teeth in the world of classical piano, but when her dad offered to pursue a recording contract on her behalf she politely declined. “I knew at the core that music would have to be my own if it would be anything at all” explains Baker. She started teaching herself to sing and improvise and began writing music soon enough. As much as she enjoyed writing, she’d never really intended to share her own story. Eventually, Baker realized that it was “just getting too much to hold inside. It started pressing its way out of me like I couldn't hold it anymore; the good, the bad, the severely broken, the beautiful.” The music came right along, entwined with it.
Baker started playing her music for people, sharing her stories and her secrets. Finding a natural fit with the intimacy of house shows, when performing live Baker draws in the audience, inviting them into conversation. Intended to uproot some of the soil of their own stories, Baker’s shows have become something more than just a musician performing for listeners. They are part concert, part telling of tales, and, in a way, a bit of a “homemade therapy session with your friends.”
The songs on Wild In The Hollow were born of counseling sessions, difficult conversations, and beautiful interactions with folks across the Pacific Northwest. The roots, though, came out of the Ohio River mud that underpins Baker’s southern Indiana birthplace. Indeed, a sense of longing, of a need to get back to the grit of the earth, pervades the record. “This record, to me, feels like the satisfaction of a little dirt on your hands: a running river, the swaying of corn, creaking wooden porches, gravel roads” says Baker. “A place of honesty and vulnerability where you can take off your boots and just be yourself.”
Produced by Brandon Bee (Allen Stone), the bulk of Wild In The Hollow was tracked at Feng Sway Studios in Vancouver, WA. “Rag & Bone”, which features English poet, singer-songwriter, Anglican priest, and Cambridge University fellow Malcolm Guite, was recorded in a living room in London. Bradford Loomis and Baker co-wrote “Shawneetown” in her sitting room. In addition to Baker, Guite, and Loomis, the record features appearances by Bee on various acoustic stringed instruments and organ, drummer Mark Alvis (The Merry Way, Allen Stone), bassist Aaron Fishburn (Beth Whitney), Dan Tyack (Campbell Brothers) on pedal steel, vocalist Susan George, Cayley Gove on cello and vocals, Emma Hasselbach (5th Avenue Theater) on violin, and David Grisham on trumpet. The record was mastered by Troy Glessner (Devin Townsend, Lo Tom).
Overall, Wild In The Hollow is a reminder that the things of true value in this life are buried deep, beyond the everyday. We have to dig a little for the gold. “These songs, to me, engage the realm of the sacred” says Baker. “They tangle with ancient things that settle deep in the soul. There's beauty to be found in our brokenness. Yet, we have to do the work of facing that brokenness to uncover the beauty. If these songs make help make that process a little less lonely, a little more provocative, and any less of a burden for somebody out there, I'll walk away satisfied.”
