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Talkhouse

At its heart, Hundred Acres — the third full-length album from Wisconsin singer/songwriter S. Carey — finds him grounded comfortably in his skin, but still with one foot in the stream. More direct than ever, there is a wellspring of confidence in this new batch of songs that lays bare the intricacies of life while keeping its ideas uncomplicated.
Trained in jazz, Carey’s astute musicianship has never been in question nor taken for granted, and the execution of Hundred Acres’ new ideas is seamless. He intentionally unburdened himself from a more complicated instrumentation palate for these ten songs, and, in effect, this modification to his approach brings the content of the work much closer to a living reality. By giving equal status to the indifference of nature and the concerns of a material world — while employing more pop-oriented structures instead of the Steve Reich&#8211; or Talk Talk-ian repetitions of his past work — a new balance is struck that creates something unique. This in turn provides equal status for the feeling that created each song, and the feeling each song creates. Almost impossibly, there is more air between the bars; Carey and his contributors sway like treetops in the wind, remaining flexible enough that they never threaten to break.
Written over the course of a few years, in between touring schedules and the growth of his family, Carey recorded, mixed and produced Hundred Acres at home and in various studios in rural Wisconsin with support from his longtime collaborators Zach Hanson, Ben Lester, and Jeremy Boettcher, as well as new contributions from Rob Moose (yMusic), Casey Foubert (Sufjan Stevens) and Sophie Payten (Gordi).

S. Carey

Music

Best of the 2010s: S. Carey Was Blown Away by Stranger In The Alps

Evocative music can be some of the best. And musician Shannon Carey, who performs under the moniker Luray, has a particular knack for doing just that. Her songs feel welcoming, yet elusive, like a long-forgotten photograph you find at the bottom of a box, a memory that gets hazier with each passing year.
&#8220;My songs tell me what’s going on with me, like my unconscious trying to get my attention,&#8221; explains Carey, who had plenty to unravel in her life leading up to the recording of her sophomore full length, Dig. &#8220;My marriage broke up while I was writing this album and the songs started to speak to me about my relationship and what I was hoping for and holding onto. What I wasn’t letting myself acknowledge. I moved to Richmond and set to finishing the songs for the record. I wrote more songs about how it felt to lose, and how it felt to be starting over.&#8221;
Although Carey has called Richmond, Virginia home for a number of years, her music has an inescapable imprint of her Wisconsin upbringing. And it&#8217;s back in Eau Claire, Wisconsin that she set about recording the album, enlisting her brother Sean Carey to produce. &#8220;The band drove out to Wisconsin and met up with Sean and engineer Brian Joseph, who had just completed building his own studio, which he called The Hive. It&#8217;s in the woods and feels very &#8216;Northern Wisconsin&#8217; — feels like a little haven from the world.&#8221; The Hive became the perfect locale to capture such a personal collection of songs. &#8220;It’s hard to explain how intimate the recording process was, but it felt very insular and almost delicate. After the end of that relationship that had been so central, I felt a little fragile and obviously in transition. Sometimes you can hear something tentative in my vocals. I had been getting my new life together for the past year, but it still felt strange.&#8221;
The eleven songs that came to form Dig provide a stolen glance at a snapshot of Shannon Carey&#8217;s life, yet invite listeners into the story to explore for themselves. It also marks the closing of one chapter and the beginning of the next.
(Photo Credit: Jake Cunningham)

Luray

Spend Some Quality Time with Luray and S. Carey