Exclusive premiere of ‘In Walked Winterlark’ EP by Santa Cruz folk duo Winterlark, out June 17th via Squink Records.

“Our songs on ‘In Walked Winterlark’ explore themes of restlessness and resilience with pop-song accessibility. Though the protagonists experience discord, or loss of innocence, or even drug dependency, they also persevere, as if they understand intimately that the problems of individual “little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” as Rick tells Ilsa in Casablanca.

We offer small affirmations on the power of love, between two headstrong adults, between parent and child, between people just trying to make sense of how to survive, when the world they thought they knew comes under assault. The soundscape of live acoustic instruments and voices strives to place our themes within palpable reach of our listeners”.

In ‘Walking This Away’, the most recent single from their forthcoming EP, ‘In Walked Winterlark’, acoustic folk-jazz duo Winterlark toss banter around like a modern day George Burns and Gracie Allen. The Santa Cruz-based singer-songwriters, Kristin Olson (upright bass) and Sweeney E. Schragg (guitar), exchange playfully barbed quips with telepathic timing that is almost vintage vaudeville. The single, which premiered in Broadway World, builds on their affection for classic duets in the tradition of Louie and Ella.

In Walked Winterlark exhibits a maturation in songwriting and a deeper connection between Sweeney and Kristin as instrumentalists and vocalists. “We don’t have a TV, so we just play tunes at night”, Sweeney explains. Kristin cracks: “Some people do crossword puzzles”. The EP also boasts a more collaborative spirit as each brought a sibling in to contribute to the sessions—Sweeney’s brother adds some fleet-fingered bluesy acoustic leads, and Kristin’s sister lays down some nuanced and soulful percussion. The EP was recorded at Blue Coast Studios and produced by Cookie Marenco, a former Grammy-nominated producer at Windham Hill Records and an innovator in direct stream digital recording.

In addition to the single, ‘In Walked Winterlark’ standouts include ‘Stick Around Blues’, ‘Automobile Radio’, and ‘Daring Mary’. ‘Stick Around Blues’ swaggers through classic blues changes with sexy bass lines and tongue-in-cheek lyrics about the annoying inability of “certain individuals” to stay put. The lyrics here, at times, ooze innuendo, as when Kristin sings: “He’s handy with tools and it’s widely renowned/But I adore that man so why won’t he stick around?”

With ‘Automobile Radio’, Winterlark sneaks in a swing tune under a pop veneer as smooth as Steely Dan. This song delves into a little bit of autobiography from Sweeney about his formative years spent with restless, vagabond parents in the back of a Buick, listening to AM radio stations from all over the US, coming and going with the mile markers. The final turn in the lyrics captures the sadness for a lost way of life as well as the hope that Winterlark clings to: “Now my automobile drives itself, yeah, and where this music comes from I don’t know. But looking in your eyes, I can see horizons, I can hear my radio, my automobile radio.”

Kristin’s very personal ‘Daring Mary’ delves into a story arc about a sympathetic hard-luck character who too easily finds adversaries, real and imagined, while mixing up wrong and right. ‘The two individuals who inspired this fictional ‘Mary’, Kristin says, “are still scraping their way through life, both daring souls dared by circumstance”. The insistent bass riff was the original nexus for this song. Sweeney filled gaps in the fictional narrative and added his carefully vetted chordal compliment. One powerfully telling passage reads: “Sixteen years of waiting tables/Worn shoes and tired bones/Five teenage girls sat laughing/The loudest was her own/Life after methadone – daring Mary/She did it for the kid”.

From the diverse musical influences of the San Francisco Bay Area, Winterlark have landed on an urban folk musicality that blends literate lyrics; bossa nova and soul rhythms; and the harmonic, melodic, and improvisatory traditions of jazz. With ‘In Walked Winterlark’, the duo now has three recordings on Squink Records, including the 2019 full-length ‘When Does Love Go South?’ and the 2021 EP, ‘When I Saw You Stranded There’.

Headline photo: Winterlark by Paul Schraub

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