New Music From In These Trees and Tartie

The Quiver, the new LP from In These Trees and Tartie, is an inspired collaboration that came into existence thanks to the vast, unifying power of independent radio. The project started in 2019 when Binnie Klein (In These Trees), a longtime DJ on Bridgeport, Connecticut’s eclectic community station WPKN, received some music in the mail for airplay consideration. Klein gets submissions all the time, but in this case she was profoundly struck by the passion and authenticity on display on the tracks sent by a young singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia called Tartie. Klein was enamored, and she asked Tartie if she’d like to work on some melodies for poetry Klein had written. According to Klein, hearing the result – a demo called “Orchard” – “was ecstasy; we were working on different continents, and being very different ages, and had different lives – all that receded as a magical alchemy took hold. It was as if my lyrics and her melody and voice went off together and fell in love.”

“Although I had been a long-time writer, I had never written songs,” Klein continues. Yet, the success of this first songwriting excursion led to an explosion of more lyrical content from Klein, who also started working with producer David Baron (Noah Kahan, Lumineers) to flesh out Tartie’s remotely-recorded vocals on “Orchard” into a full production. It was Baron who suggested that the pair expand the single into a full album at his Boiceville, New York studio with local musicians, and the resulting LP features impressive players including virtuoso guitarist Jeff Pevar (Jazz Is Dead, The Gilmour Project, David Crosby), background vocalist Jennifer Kreisberg (Ulali), and percussionist Jerry Marotta (Hall & Oates, Indigo Girls, Stevie Nicks).  “Always curating and presenting musical artists over the years on my radio show,” Klein says, “I never dreamed I’d have my own CD… Tartie’s somewhat more ‘pop’ sensibility pulled me out of my inclination towards melancholy in my writing, and I saw how the heartbreak and losses I’d been writing about could transform into an empowerment, a liberation.” Highlights include “Orchard” as well as “Ablaze,” a haunting song written by Tartie about the Australian bushfires of 2019 and the devastating effects of climate change on Mother Earth, “Quiver,” with lyrics by Klein and music by Tartie, about leaning into your own version of joy and letting go of anything that stands in your way, and “Hailstorm,” also by Klein and Tartie, an uptempo song exploring  the way love can become a rumination, an obsession, and sometimes kind of silly… Is it a joy or a curse?

“Pop melodies and luxurious production take on topics like the climate, and heartbreak — the result is a gorgeous record.” – Kevin Alexander, On Repeat Records

“Full of vivid imagery, piercing melodies, shifting musical textures, and deep feelings.” – New Haven Independent

RIYL: Aldous Harding, London Grammar, Lana Del Rey, Kate Bush

Recommended Tracks: Track 3, “Quiver,” Track 1, Orchard,” Track 2, “Ablaze,” Track 6, “Sky, Ocean,” Track 8, “Hailstorm”

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Going for adds 7/23