Quavering vocal harmonies and delicate acoustic accents roll through a blissful backcountry scene on Valley Maker's “No One Is Missing”, in part recalling the dusky lo-fi plains of Kurt Vile and Cass McCombs – lyrics interpreting the organic unison of nature and the art of music as a form of remedying the pandemic’s myriad social repercussions.
Seattle-based for the last ten years, Crane, along with his family, recently decamped to South Carolina - an uprooting and re-assimilation that finds a voice in the upcoming third album When The Day Leaves. Crane expands upon the bearing this had on the premise of his latest track: “I wrote this song, along with much of When The Day Leaves, as a way of grappling with the partiality and temporality of how we connect with one another, I guess as an attempt to collect and reflect on recent experiences of loss, love, leaving, returning, missing, etc. While recent months of social distancing have often felt isolating, I'm continually grateful for how music and the natural world can remind us we're not alone.”
The unspoilt terrain of a local eco-reserve vividly visually realises the themes of the single: “The 'No One Is Missing' video was filmed in one of my favorite places, Edisto Island in South Carolina's lowcountry. Having recently moved to SC from Seattle, I spent a couple days there with my friend and filmmaker, Austin Grebenc, exploring and capturing footage – mostly at a wildlife preserve named Botany Bay. It's a lush, isolated place. The beach where we filmed is only accessible at low tide and is full of dead trees. I felt like that tidal flow, combined with the generally surreal and outside-of-time quality of the landscape, provided a spatial and visual connection with where "No One Is Missing" is coming from as a song”.
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