Ears Wide Open: Winter Grain
Kevin Bronson on
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Music-making married couple Winter Grain craft harmony-rich folk-pop that finds its poignancy in relatable stories told in smart lyrics.
After earning some bona fides in Utah, where Kate Anderson and Secily Saunders met in 2014, the duo moved to L.A. in 2018. They’ve had to juggle their project around their respective careers — Saunders as a music teacher and Anderson as an Army helicopter pilot. Their first release came in the form of a self-titled EP in 2017, followed by the three-song “Pale Horse Sound” EP in 2018 just prior to their big move.
Winter Grain’s third EP, “Hollywood & Hard,” arrives Dec. 3. Like their first release, it was made at Bear Creek Studio near Seattle with producer Ryan Hadlock, known for his work with the Lumineers, Brandi Carlile and Vance Joy (along with the likes of Blonde Redhead, The Afghan Whigs and Milo Greene).
A month after the release of the EP’s first single, “Fists,” in January, Anderson was deployed with her Army unit, but Winter Grain has teased the release with two more songs, notably “A Better You,” an energetic meditation on personal growth. “In our lives we often find ourselves disappointed with other’s unkept promises and often even our own unkept promises,” the duo said of the song, released last month. “To us, life is constant learning. And learning is often the result of ‘mistakes.’ As we get older we have found ourselves being more interested in being better people than being ‘cool’ people, whatever that means in the end.”
That release was followed this month by the deeply personal “Passenger Seat,” based on Anderson’s experience being a motherless child between the ages of 9 and 12. They explain: “There’s a new, palpable tension to the song every time it’s performed because it captures both the joy and sadness: joy of a mother who realized her kid wanted nothing more than to be with her mom, sadness of a kid whose mom took three years to turn the car around.”
||| Stream: “A Better You,” “Passenger Seat” and “Fists”
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