MARGO CILKER “Valley Of Heart’s Delight" (Fluff and Gravy)
Add Date: 9/12/2023
Release Date: 9/15/2023
FCC: Clean
Focus Tracks: Keep It On A Burner, With The Middle, Lowland Trail
Formats: NACC Top 200, Folk, Non-Comm AAA, AMA
RIYL: Sera Cahoone, Brandi Carlile, Margaret Glaspy
“Keep It on a Burner" is a stream of consciousness reflection. Fittingly, I started writing it while floating down the Salmon River on a whitewater rafting trip full of rattlesnakes and wildfire smoke. I think of it as a song about playing the long game and pursuing your heart’s delight, despite life's winding waterways.” - Margo Cilker
“The singer-songwriter is poised to have a breakout year with the upcoming Valley of Heart's Delight” - Rolling Stone Country
Margo Cilker’s sophomore album, Valley of Heart’s Delight, refers to a place she can't return: California’s Santa Clara Valley, as it was known before the orchards were paved over and became more famous for Silicon than apricots. Margo is the fifth generation of Cilkers born there, and in this 11-song collection, family and nature intertwine as guiding motifs, at once precious and endangered, beautiful and exhausting. The trees here are family trees, or they’re apricot trees, but suburban sprawl isn’t looking good for either. Cilker moved from California to the Pacific Northwest in her mid-twenties and wrote much of Valley of Heart's Delight while living in Enterprise, Oregon, a small town near the Snake River and powered by the river’s massive, publicly-funded hydroelectric dams. The dams (part of the same system Woody Guthrie was hired to write about) provide clean electricity to much of the western US but make it extraordinarily difficult for anadromous fish (such as Steelhead Trout) to return from the ocean and spawn in their native streams. Valley Of Heart’s Delight feeds off of this tension - how we live in and off of nature, how we live within and without family, and why we return to the places we were born.
Cilker and producer Sera Cahoone’s work on her critically acclaimed Pohorylle debut earned its accolades for lyric-focused production and understated musicianship. The pair maintain this approach on Valley of Heart’s Delight, bringing back the same crew to the same studio in Vancouver, Washington: Cahoone (Sub Pop, Carissa’s Weird, Band Of Horses) drums and produces, John Morgan Askew (Neko Case, Laura Gibson) engineers, Jenny Conlee-Drizos (The Decemberists) provides piano, organ, and accordion, Rebecca Young (Lindsey Fuller) plays bass, Kelly Pratt (Beirut) on horns, and of course, sister Sarah Cilker contributes harmonies. Those in need of more twang will appreciate the addition of Paul Brainard’s (M. Ward, Richmond Fontaine) pedal steel and telecaster work, Annie Staninec's (Mary Gauthier) fiddle, and the mandolin and high lonesome harmony of Portland country standard-bearer Caleb Klauder.
Valley Of Heart’s Delight follows Cilker's critically acclaimed Pohorylle debut, which resulted in a profile by NPR's All Things Considered for "bridging the urban-rural divide through music” and was listed among the "Best Country Albums of 2021" by Stereogum, No Depression, The Boot, Glide Magazine, and more. Pitchfork called the record “a vivid introduction to this country artist who pushes against conventions of the genre that don’t fit her perspective,” and Rolling Stone added, "Cilker shows that she is as interested in reinvigorating Southern country-folk storytelling tropes as she is in exposing their flaws." In the UK, Pohorylle was nominated for Americana Album of The Year alongside Brandi Carlile and Robert Plant and praised by The Guardian as “a flawless gem of a record.” Back in her current home state of Washington, the Seattle Times called Pohorylle “one of the finest records to come out of the Northwest [in 2021].”
Margo Cilker On Tour
OCT 5 THU - Zootown Arts Community Center - Missoula, MT
OCT 6 FRI - Live From The Divide - Bozeman, MT
OCT 7 SAT - Live From The Divide - Bozeman, MT
OCT 10 TUE - Turf Club - St Paul, MN
OCT 11 WED - Shitty Barn - Spring Green, WI
OCT 12 THU - The Back Room - Milwaukee, WI
OCT 13 FRI - Wildwood Smokehouse - Iowa City, IA
OCT 14 SAT - Schubas - Chicago, IL
OCT 17 TUE - Monarch Tavern - Toronto, ON
OCT 18 WED - Club Cafe - Pittsburgh, PA
OCT 19 THU - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY
OCT 21 SAT - Milkboy - Philadelphia, PA
OCT 22 SUN - DC9 - Washington, DC
OCT 24 TUE - Cat's Cradle -Back Room - Carrboro, NC
OCT 25 WED - The Evening Muse - Charlotte, NC
OCT 26 THU - The Grey Eagle - Asheville, NC
OCT 28 SAT - JJ's Bohemia - Chattanooga, TN
OCT 29 SUN - 3rd & Lindsley - Nashville, TN
NOV 17 FRI - Tractor Tavern - Seattle, WA
NOV 18 SAT - Polaris Hall - Portland, OR
NOV 19 SUN - Polaris Hall - Portland, OR