Margo Cilker - "Lowland Trail" from the 2023 album Valley of Heart's Delight from Fluff & Gravy

For today's Song of the Day, Goldendale, WA-based singer/songwriter Margo Cilker shares an early listen of her sophomore LP Valley Of Heart’s Delight, slated for a September 15th release via Fluff & Gravy Records. The album was produced by long-time KEXP fave Sera Cahoone, and recorded with guest musicians from The Decemberists, Band Of Horses, and Beirut. She says of the new album:

I wrote these songs surrounded by the wild landscapes of the Northwest, but I was leaning toward the place I’d come from. I felt cut off from my family and the valley that held them. I spent hours thinking about my sense of belonging. I’d traveled through many places and then, when the travel stopped, I ruminated on where I had ended up. Where were you when the music stopped? I was in Enterprise, OR. And there in Enterprise, my mind drifted back to the Valley of Heart’s Delight.

I wrote about family — about death and rebirth, and the arcs of love and art through a family line. There are songs that hint at missteps and redemption. There are songs about trees: in orchard rows, family trees, redwoods. And water: agricultural runoff, wild rivers, dammed rivers, baptismal flows. And there’s a [cover] song about a fish, cause it’s a damn good song and I wanted to record it.

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