I have lost plenty of friends (mostly animal companions) over the years and have experienced swaying between acceptance and downright despair a lot. This single I’m about to introduce speaks about that feeling in such a beautiful way that it moves. It’s also a simply gorgeous song!
Living in the beautiful mountains of Tennessee with her kids and animals we find Cartinglee, a singer-songwriter lady who brings the magic of life and nature into her music. That magic takes equal presence both in the instrumentation and her emotive vocals as well as the poetic lyrics. Listen to any song of hers and you’ll meet a beautiful world in a genre-crossing atmosphere – you get a wonderful dynamic piano, or a hazy indie rock vibe, or wintery acoustic guitar and piano ballads among others. There’s childlike honesty and wonder in her songs alongside the balancing act of living. That balancing part is a core emotion of her newest single “Star/Dust“.
“This single is the first in a cycle of songs about anxiety, loss, healing, and growth. Star/Dust is the oldest song in this cycle and I wrote it for a student who lost her dad to cancer. She asked me to write something inspired by the words inhale/exhale, which is how Star/Dust was born.”
Cartinglee
Starting with a wondrous piano, the song brings forth a slowly-paced atmosphere that swells with emotion and intensity before cooling down, to rise again. There’s a breathing rhythm present, which soothes while the lyrics speak aching thoughts of grief and missing the person who used to be part of your daily life. There’s a very sort of balanced feel in the lyrics as she discusses the notion of growing older not bringing answers to any of those questions as a person works their way through life and meeting the inevitable grief and fear of losing. The lyrics are masterfully written, and so is the instrumentation that holds a sweet presence around the vocals.
“Star/Dust” is a balancing act between the damp cold depths of grief and anxiety, and healing from trauma. Everything in this song shows this sometimes quivering and other times stable balance with clarity, and it feels just so real. There really isn’t a much better song to choose to listen to on those quiet sad days of remembrance, or for sending to a friend who has just lost someone. And if you don’t have a particularly aching soul that needs the comfort this song offers plentily, you can still enjoy the beautiful production and singing.
There is more to come as Cartinglee tells us more on how this came to be:
“The rest songs for the upcoming album, A Little Fog, were written in a songwriting challenge among friends in February of 2020 (side note: we’ve since done three more months worth of songs) The work really centers around the slow dance between anxiety and healing in the wake of difficult experiences, but all of the songs have roots in the area where I live, the mountains of southeast Tennessee. Many of the songs are inspired by places I go often, including the ridge where I live, Lauderback Ridge, the Hiwassee River, Laurel Snow state natural area, and Cloudland Canyon. I think there is a powerful connection between our trauma and anxiety and that of the natural world, and this album really starts to dig into that idea, as well as into the feeling that trauma, creativity, healing, and growth happen within an environment and cannot be separated from that place. This is why Cartinglee, my solo musical project, is more of a place in my mind, and my songs reflect the practice of entering and honoring that place. The album is scheduled to come out in spring of 2022.”
Don’t forget to support this project and to follow on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify. You can also check out her official website. If you enjoy his music and are able to provide monetary support, you might consider downloading it on Bandcamp.
You can obviously find it in the following Playlists: Fresh Singles, Chill – Folk – Acoustic, Female Rising Stars, and, Autumn Acoustic.
P.S. If you enjoy discovering new artists and fresh new music you can subscribe to this blog Less Than 1,000 Followers and follow the Playlist with all the artists that we have presented here!!!
This coverage was created via MusoSoup #Sustainablecurator