Title: “Wildflowers”Artist: Brandon Caulfield & The Birds of Sorrow
Release Date: December 6, 2015
Recorded: September – November, 2015 – Blackbird Studios, Nashville, Tennessee
Genres: Alternative Rock, Americana, Country, Folk
Length: 63:44
Label: Independent
Producer(s): Brandon Caulfield
“Wildflowers” is the title of the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter ‘Brandon Caulfield’, it also marks his first official release with his band ‘The Birds of Sorrow’. It will also signal Caulfield’s return to the industry having not release a new record since his previous effort “Some Roads Lead to Nowhere” which was released in December 2013. The unannounced hiatus from the music industry has been due to a number of different reasons, firstly the birth of his children, twins Caleb and Charlotte and more recently it was announced that Caulfield has been suffering from Meniere’s disease for almost a year, making it difficult for Caulfield to continue onwards with his music career with spells of vertigo and sickness. He has spent the past year mostly at his home in California rehabilitating in order to be able to better cope with those issues which he appears to have finally managed to resolve. In early September he assembled a group of longtime friends and collaborators and begun working on what would become the debut album from his ensemble under the title of “Brandon Caulfield & The Birds of Sorrow”, an album that has long been expected by his fanbase.
Taking such an extended break from releasing new music could been seen as a risky move for Caulfield as with his last studio album “Some Roads Lead to Nowhere” and the one before that, “Tales from the Heartlands” had seen Caulfield finally move up into the higher echelons of the music industry, with both of those records becoming hits, spawning seven top five singles and after a career which started slow and took a while to take off, he finally begun reaping the rewards of his hard work. However with such a long break, it’s thought that Caulfield may have found himself back to where he was prior to those albums and may have to work once again to find himself in the upper echelons of the music industry once more.
The album “Wildflowers” was written throughout 2015 primarily by Brandon Caulfield and co-vocalist Alexia Quinn, it’s the first time of note that Caulfield has shared songwriting and vocal duties during his career, opting to share the spotlight with the young up and coming country singer Alexia Quinn, whom Caulfield had discovered and initially hired as a session musician and backing vocalist for his last studio album in 2013. She has yet to make a name for herself in the music industry, having created a very small and brief amount of buzz online with a YouTube clip of her performing one of her own songs, it’s thought that the release of this album could be a catalyst for her own music career to possibly take off in the near future.
The album was recorded between September and November 2015 at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Upon the recording of the album, Caulfield assembled his band to his barn in Southern California where they rehearsed the songs together for a couple of weeks in order to make sure that the material was fully ready to be recorded. His main aim with the new music and the inclusion of a supporting band was to create a “true country record”, which is something he had always had dreams of doing, despite his genre naturally being considered somewhere along the lines of alternative rock. It was when he released “Tales from the Heartland” where he truly discovered that he could possibly make a career out of writing Americana and Country themed songs and although he has weaved in and out of those genre’s for his last two records he wanted to really push those genre’s to the forefront of what he was doing.
According to a recent interview, Caulfield described what it was that he wanted to achieve with this new music,
“I had always been a fan of the classic outlaw country artists from back in the day. The Willie Nelsons, Johnny Cash’s and Waylon Jennings. Of course rock music was always where my main inspiration came from as a musician, the likes of Springsteen and Tom Petty and as I listened more to their music, I saw the influence that country music clearly had on their work. I’ve always been fascinated with that Americana thing, not just when it comes to music, but the classic cowboy movies or novels from the likes of John Steinbeck and as I started to get older I’ve taken a deeper interest in the history of the country and I find myself fascinated by stories of the Dust Bowl and how this country came to be. So when it came to writing a new record, I knew instantly that I wanted to make a true Country and Americana record but one that comes from a modern perspective, whether or not we’ve managed to achieve that will remain to be seen.”The album will be released independently on December 6, 2015.
Track listing;1. The Fine Art of Growing Old (4:56)
2. Not Over Yet (5:19)
3. My Kingdom Come (3:07)
4. Lion’s Den (4:22)
5. True Humanity (4:13)
6. We’ll All Find Our Way (4:27)
7. Ain’t Giving Up Now (3:18)
8. From Dust to Ember (3:39)
9. Wherever I May Lay My Head (4:27)
10. Bird of Sorrow (4:52)
11. Down In The Valley Below (3:49)
12. I’m No Good For You, You’re No Good For Me (4:11)
13. It’s Time For You To Go (4:32)
14. No More Cryin’ (3:02)
15. We’re So Much Older Now (4:17)
16. Wildflowers (3:53)
Personnel;Brandon Caulfield – vocals, lead guitar, acoustic guitar, slide-guitar, piano, drums and percussion, lyrics, composition, production
Alexia Quinn – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, strings, lyrics, composition, production
Flynn McCarthy - guitar, drums, mandolin, fiddle, backing vocals
Dylan O’Connor – drums, percussion, mandolin, glockenspiel
Sarah Jade Harrison – cello, bass, percussion, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Avery Wyatt – lead guitar, pedal-steel guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
