Carrie Tree’s latest album “The Canoe”. carrietree.co.uk
‘The Canoe’ is the third album by Brighton based singer-songwriter Carrie Tree. The listener is drawn into her world of mystical storytelling and sublime melody through the production and arrangements of Markus Sieber (known for his ambient acoustic recordings as Aukai).
Created here is a spatial, delicate sound that allows Carrie’s mesmeric voice and rhythmic, fluid guitar style to take centre stage, with piano and other instrumentation adding to the soundscape.
“I was captivated by the tender yet expansive power in Carrie’s voice and music,” says Markus.
“My main focus was to bring out quiet, subtle qualities that could weave the listener gently into her evocative and mysterious songs.”
They worked remotely across the seas through a winter, drawing on a palette of diverse international
musicians. With Markus based in Colorado and Mexico, and Carrie in London and Sussex, they met ‘halfway’ in the spring of 2018 to complete the record in Greenhouse Studios, Iceland.
The album title reflects the symbolic and metaphorical significance of canoes and journeys taken on water. “In many traditions, there is the idea that we are born on a canoe (via the mother’s body) and when we die, we leave on one too,”
Carrie explains. “A lot of the songs have birth, death, water, home and travel as their central themes, so the idea of a canoe felt like a beautiful symbol for that.” One of the songs, ‘Honey Soup’, is about the body as a vessel, as a home in life, while the title track is about the gateway, fragility and power of birth.
The shell pendant used as the front cover image is also a type of vessel. “It was given to me by one of my dearest friends, who took their own life a few years ago. This is an object that links us together through the river of life and death.”
Carrie also speaks of the power of setting time aside for journeys. “As everything seems to be moving faster and faster in life, turning off the computer, returning to simplicity and recentring, feels more important than ever.” The owner of a canoe herself, she continues: “The joy of having everything I need in my boat and setting off, carried by the sea, or the river’s tide, is so nourishing emotionally,
spiritually and physically.
It is from within these moments that a lot of these songs were written.
Songwriting is my poetic approach to life’s situations; it often brings me insight, relief or understanding and through it I find honesty with myself.”
‘delicate, soulful melodies with poetic lyrics, that embrace the room with waves of emotion.’
Carrie Tree is a ‘phenomenal singer/songwriter’ – Carly Simon quoted in The Word Magazine
Carrie has toured and/or collaborated with the likes of Damien Rice, Fink, Duke Special, Rumer, Carly Simon, Ben Taylor, Martha Tilston – even the prog rock band Marillion! She has been a known name on the UK alternative/green festival scene for several years playing regularly at festivals like Glastonbury, Sunrise, Shambala and Buddhafields, has travelled through many parts of the world with her music and regularly tours in parts of Europe.
