For this week's premiere, we've got the latest from Caley Conway, a Milwaukee songwriter who blurs the boundaries between folk, post-rock and roots music. On Friday, she'll release her new EP "Bliss or Bust," the first of several projects she's been working on during the pandemic, and we're excited to share its graceful title track. You can stream and read about it below, and keep an eye out for its video, which will be out with the EP on Friday.
Artists' statement
I wrote 'Bliss or Bust' as a reflection on that precarious notion that a romantic relationship can deliver us from a state of anguish into a state of bliss. The narrator (...me?) is desperate for a kind of exultation; convinced it'll be brought on by the love and desire of another. No plan B.
The visual concept for the video was inspired by the attached photo, which I've selected to serve as the album art. My friend Allie, a professional photographer in NYC, directed me in a remote photo shoot over FaceTime last fall, which yielded this photo among many other cool images. The experience was quite fun and unique -- I got to transform little spaces in my apartment into sets, almost like building forts as a kid -- and it inspired me to conduct my own DIY film content here at home. For 'Bliss or Bust,' I attempted to recreate the still image, bring it to life with the song, and send it swirling into a more abstract, fantastical realm.
I recorded the EP with my friend James Paul Mitchell (originally from Milwaukee) in Nashville, out of his home studio at the end of 2019. We hired Nashville drummer Jake Finch (Lucy Dacus) to play drums on it. 2020 was spent in post-production, mixing, remote tracking, and stalling in the hopes that live shows and touring might be a possibility again before releasing the project. Since that obviously didn't happen, I decided to make these music videos as companions for each song, sending them out into the world one-by-one over the last two months. It's been my hope that they provide a rich alternative to the experience of live performance, for the listener. This has been my first foray into creating video.The EP will not be published on Spotify and the other mega subscription-based streaming platforms, at least not at this time. I'm treating this release process as part of an ongoing contemplation on the morality of the streaming model.