Russian folktales, illustrations and Hans Christian Anderson inspire the new Buried Beds album In Spirit

Buried Beds have announced the release of a new album, In Spirit on September 24th via Devinyl Records. Band members Eliza Jones, Brandon Beaver, Dave Hartley (The War On Drugs/Nightlands), Tommy Bendel and Hallie Sianni self-produced the record. Nick Krill of The Spinto Band mixed the album, which also features guest appearances from mewithoutYou’s Greg Jehanian, Eric Slick of Dr. Dog, Mary Lattimore, and Daniel Hart. The Key reached out via e-mail to Jones to talk about some inspirations for the album. She says:

When we began writing for this album we wanted a unifying theme that would tie it together. We were drawn to folk tales because they arise from people trying to make sense of the world and passing that knowledge down through generations. We started writing some songs based on old French and Russian folktales in particular. Those early folk tales paint the world as a dark and magical place, and we like how that fits with our musical sensibility. Once we started the process we expanded this idea to include stories that were told to us as we were growing up, or recently, and even ideas in modern life that have an allegorical feel. Specific sources included the aforementioned folktales, the book Sum by David Eagleman, the many-worlds theory, Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes”, photographs by the artist Robert Hite, stories told by my grandmother, and even a few original tales. All of the artwork for the album is by Russian illustrator Ivan Bilibin, whose illustrations we discovered in a book of Russian folktales. The inspiration for the single ‘Stars’ was the Russian version of the “Firebird” story.

The band play Johnny Brenda’s with Chris Cohen and Alec Ounsworth on Thursday, August 29th. Below, listen to the new song, “Stars.”