By Genny Sheara
Red and purple velvet tapestries hung from the rafters, allowing light to filter only through illuminated stained glass or bubble string lights. After years of attending sold-out amphitheater shows that attempted to curate an ‘intimate’ setting, it was a relief to be welcomed into one so naturally. And truly welcomed– a woman in a baby blue embroidered butterfly dress and cowboy hat asked if I wanted a chair.
The strict divisions that typically define the corporate concert ecosystem– audience and performer, general admission and VIP, press passes and staff wristbands– didn’t really exist at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center. Americana “traveling bard” Rae Isla drew the crowd for the release party of her new “New Frontier” album, not too far from her hometown on a nearby Washington island. By 9:00 p.m., every one of the folding plastic chairs in the audience had been claimed and then some: a few like myself lingered on the far wall, still plenty close to the band, and Isla opened her set by inviting everyone to the pillows and carpets strewn at the foot of the stage.
‘Stage’ is possibly a misnomer– there was no pedestal, but a collection of instruments, chairs, and warm light that composed the front of the venue.
“We had the option of having a stage, but we said no because we wanted to all be together like this,” she said, gesturing to the boundaryless crowd.
The band played the album in its entirety, with the setlist (written on Seattle postcards) following the tracklisting. For all the cowboy hats and bolo ties I spotted that evening, I expected something close to the Texas outlaw country I was so familiar with. But many of the songs off “New Frontier,” most notably its title track, enveloped the room, and possibly all of Seattle, in a full ambient soundscape.
Yet much of the album was made up of impassioned singer-songwriter tracks, which in some ways is an oddity coming out of Seattle’s love and history of grunge. Isla explained that rather than finding her genre necessarily from a local scene, it was largely inspired by the classical instruments she played growing up.
“When you're writing songs and you only have one instrument, you're a singer-songwriter, but when you play classical music, you can hear an entire soundscape. So I think I've always tried to find ways to combine those two things. But it is interesting working with musicians who are based in Seattle because they are bringing in a bit of the Seattle sound, and I'm really eager to keep pulling on that thread and see what happens,” Isla said.
It’s easy to remember the evening entirely in endearing vignettes. Flowers were strewn on the microphone stand. A toddler in hot pink shoes was the first to get up and start dancing to the music, much to her parents’ delight. An older, well-behaved dog sniffed the wood panel floor. The setting and the music equally nurtured one another.
To introduce the third-to-last song, ‘Waiting,’ Isla mentioned to listeners that “if you’re looking to release some shit, now would be the time to do it.” These last few tracks were the highlight of the album, with a layered sound supplementing simple and earnest lyrics.
The concept of the album, “New Frontier,” is both a lyrical and literal one. Throughout the show, Isla mentioned how she grew up near Seattle, attended college in Boston, and went on to live in New York City, Mexico City, and Los Angeles, with each city offering its own inspirations.
“I'm very inspired by the places that I've lived, and I think there's a quality to all of them. There's like a common thread between all of them, which is this idea of like, opportunity and excitement. I think I'm obsessed with the new frontier,” Isla said.
Simultaneously, she explained how the album offers an equal criticism of the cultural obsession with newness, interwoven with the personal desire for it.
“I reference ‘the Virgin,’ I reference these things that are pure, and it's a very patriarchal thing too. It's like to claim what is untouched. We're all guilty of it. I'm really guilty of it, but I criticize it as well,’ she said.
When we first spoke at the end of the show, Isla mentioned how she felt as though she had just released something really big. The band received a true encore and returned to play a few newer and unreleased tracks that Isla had written. Almost everyone in the crowd waited to greet her as an old friend, even if this was their first time hearing her music.
In the midst of releasing and now touring an album centered totally on the concept of newness, I wondered what Isla would be moving toward next.
“I think I'm at a place in my life where, you know, maybe I'm ready to stay in one place and stop pursuing the next thing, and just kind of go inward and face my demons. It’s a little super exciting.”
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