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Carrie Hill Releases her Arboreal Masterpiece
"Insight" Explores folk, psychedelia and simplicity
Nevaras City, Duchy of Nevaras
September 29, 5648


Hill Continues her journey to Quiet

Carrie Hill's third album for Plateau, Insight, continues her exploration of folk music begun on her previous record Nevaran Sunset, and away from mainstream country stylings. "I can't really call my music country anymore," said Hill. "I wonder if there is a term for it: Maybe Rustic?" Insight is indeed much heavier on the folk than country. "But I think if you really look at my stuff compared to what might pass for country these days, I never really quite got there. I have always been more about finding and speaking about inner peace."

This album isn't all acoustic folk though. "I think we employed electronic instruments, like drum pads and organs throughout, and used a lot of really wet production, to give the music, and my voice a lot of depth and you might almost say, aural tracers, to keep it soft, but also to keep it modern, and to keep it kinda trippy," said Hill, who says that psilocybin really influenced this record. Hill said one of her main inspirations for the album was a fall visit to Forest House for an informal audience with the Empress, who requested the opportunity to meet her. "The day was so misty, and the forest was still green. The redwoods were covered in moss, and everything was damp. And Her Imperial Majesty and I both took a hand full of mushrooms before leaving, and then just sort of let the day flow by as she showed me around her forest. That's the experience I wanted to try to do with this record. We actually took a walk through the forest up there in the Dragon Hills. It was an indelible moment for me, and it kinda drove the imagery on what eventually turned into this record."

She took that experience back into the song writing process when she sat down to write the music on Insight. "When I was writing, and working out a lot of these songs with [Plateau Recording Producer] Tanya [van Buren] I was eating a lot of mushrooms, and so I would kind of microdose, then we'd chat about a lot of stuff, like astrology, or space, or the forest. And we'd write, and think about how these songs would sound, and how we could bring in these dreamy effects and just really mellow tunes. It's definitely my most 'drug' album: It's a very cerebral, heady record."

Hill plays acoustic rhythm guitar throughout the record, and recorded primarily with Plateau's journeyman session troupe, the Cadence Club. "We used just a zillion different kind of instruments, from strings, percussion of all sorts, vibraphones, banjos, keyboards, all kinds of stuff" said Club drummer Max Greene. "It's definitely a totally different experience to record with Carrie than it is with almost every other Plateau band. She kind of described soundscapes for us, and let us figure it out. And she was so cool to work with. Very nice and despite her reputation, she was very professional and dedicated to the craft."

Lyrically, Carrie Hill leans heavily on a breathy High Alto-Soprano vocal range, and her diction leans heavily on the hard R rhoticism of the Vrassan Plateau. "We had to kind of watch out on some of the hard Rs," said Van Buren, who co produced the record with Hill. "We'd kind of tease her a little bit on the rhoticism: Pop artists tend to soften their consonants, but Hill is just in the habit of belting out every single hard consonant. It tends to make her songs sound heavier when I think she wants them to sound a little more ethereal. She said she wanted to span time with this record, and so I got her to work with a vocal coach a little bit, to kind of keep those hard consonants out of her mouth more often. I think eventually we had to compromise--that's what you'll hear on this record."

"I'm really happy with this record," said Hill. "Like, I think this was the way I was going my whole career. It's kind of an earthy, dreamy, and real pretty and natural kind of album. One might almost say its pastoral, except about the forest: Maybe arboreal? I think this is my arboreal masterpiece. It feels verdant and like it makes me feel like chlorophyll, if that makes any sense. I am definitely in my earth mother phase."

Hill also noted that Her Imperial Majesty received an advanced copy of the album. "I want to be humble, and say she liked it," said Hill. "But I know she loved it. It's so nice to have her for a friend. I know she's always dug my music, and that's an honor in and of itself. But like I said, I am trying to keep my ego in check about this. So I will just say she liked it."

You can most certainly listen to the full album Insight by Carrie Hill, produced at Plateau Studios in Nevaras City, right here. And you can also check out the new lead single, "Insight" on M7 and right here

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGkMYMxi-hw]

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