Episode 33: Rachel Baiman
We are joined by Nashville based musician and songwriter Rachel Baiman, who discusses her recently released record Cycles. Rachel has travelled an interesting and varied creative path: from young fiddle prodigy to Nashville session and touring band musician to producer and noted songwriter. Our conversation centers on the transitions in Rachel’s musical journeys. For Cycles, she travelled to Australia to record with producer Olivia Hally (Oh Pep), as she tried to capture the influences of the gritty Melbourne indie rock scene. Also covered: interior design and spaghetti rhymes.
Here is a link to Rachel’s essay in No Depression that is discussed:
nodepression.com/the-long-haul-when-creativity-takes-a-detour
With her 2017 debut Shame, Americana songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rachel Baiman emerged as a fearless voice of the American female experience. “Shame” was featured on NPR’s “Songs We Love”, called a “Rootsy Wake-up Call” by Folk Alley, and described by Vice’s “Noisey” as “flipping off authority one song at a time.” On her new full-length album Cycles, Baiman has found a grittier musical medium for her signature unabashed and defiant songwriting, employing a majority-female team including co-producer Olivia Hally, known as the front woman of Indie-pop band Oh Pep!
Cycles is a collection of songs encompassing the many ways that we destroy and rebuild as people, as families, and as a country. Songs about the cycle of life inspired by the birth of a nephew and the loss of a grandmother, songs about internal mental cycles of ambition and self-doubt, the cycle of progress and regression in our country’s political journey, and the cycles of growth and reinvention that relationships take on. At times heartbreaking, at times celebratory, the album is a reflection of a lot of life experienced in a relatively short amount of time, a desire to hold fast to the people we love in the wake of so much uncertainty, and an exploration of the immense and unique strength of women in the face of adversity.
