Inda Eaton Shelters in Place in Springs
‘I think you’re going to hear a lot of space in this record,” Inda Eaton, the roots-rock, Americana artist said last week. “As many players as there are on this, there’s going to be a ton of space.”
Ms. Eaton, who lives in Springs, was discussing her upcoming album, “Shelter in Place.” Due in June, “Shelter in Place” will be Ms. Eaton’s eighth overall release, and the first to be written entirely at home.
With the percussionist Jeffrey Smith, Ms. Eaton will perform “Authentic Adventures: Acoustic Highway,” featuring original music performed in three acts, tomorrow at 8 p.m. at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. The artist described the show as “a barn raising of sorts,” an introduction to her new music.
“Shelter in Place” follows 2012’s “Go West,” which featured the standout track and radio favorite “Love Is a Road,” and subsequent, extensive touring. “We worked that record for a couple of years,” Ms. Eaton said last week. “Then the new songs start coming, sometimes right when you’re in the middle of that record, and you don’t have the proper context about what they’re going to be.”
“I thought we were going to record this two years ago,” she said, “but realized we were going to make ‘Go West 2.0.’ A different approach, mentality, some restructuring had to happen.”
The title, Ms. Eaton said, references multiple themes, among them the inescapable aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. “Every show, every opening, every reading, every creative I’ve met is referencing the election,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be associated with a certain point of view, but in everybody, there’s an unsettling. That is a catalyst for creativity.”
The musician had embarked on a cross-country road trip after the election. “Things felt . . . tribal,” she recalled. “I’ve never felt that. I drive around a lot, and I’ve traveled through elections. We all move on, but this felt different . . . . You could feel the energy, and sometimes it wasn’t in the obvious stereotypes. People were, and are still, angry.”
The theme of shelter came to her late on that journey. “I thought, what a great name for a tour, a project, because it felt like many people were hunkering down.”
The songs on “Shelter in Place” also reflect life in Springs, said Ms. Eaton, who grew up in Casper, Wyo., San Diego, and Arizona. “I think this album truly starts to see the influence of living out here,” she said. “This is the first album that all of the songs were penned at the kitchen table. It doesn’t mean they weren’t influenced by other things, but . . . in my thinking and being, you start to see the effects of seasons, and the isolating openness out here. I’m starting to see that come down to more space in the music, in the lyrics. I’m starting to see the space of the isolation, in a good way.”
Along with its composition, “Shelter in Place,” in another nod to its title, was recorded at home. Ms. Eaton shunned the studio for this project, instead calling on Aura Sonic, a Queens location recording service, to take the studio to her for the three-week production. “It was important not to keep traveling back and forth to a studio,” she said. “It was important to be set, comfortable, not dissipate energy with road trips, with packing and unpacking. In a way, you’re trying to find the center, the shelter of what you do, to convey that art. So the metaphors kept coming for ‘shelter in place.’ ”
Not that that manifestation of the theme was apparent at the time. “We recorded in winter, in Springs, in the woods, in a kitchen,” Ms. Eaton said. “You look back and say, ‘We were sheltering in place,’ but we also recorded in a kitchen because it sounded good.” Aura Sonic’s principal, Steve Remote, “converted the house into NORAD,” she joked, a reference to the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colo. “Then it became even more apparent, what we had done.”
The temporary studio allowed Ms. Eaton and musicians including Michael Guglielmo (drums), Jeff Marshall (bass), and B. Rehm-Gerdes (guitar) to capture the energy of playing together in the same space, with instruments isolated by baffles. The sounds were routed to and recorded in a spare bedroom that was converted to a control room.
Overdubs will continue at Ms. Eaton’s home studio, with Mr. Smith adding percussion and the South Fork musicians Arlethia (Mamalee) Lawler, Rose Lawler, and Nancy Atlas contributing vocals. Eve Nelson, a part-time resident of Springs, contributed piano and will mix “Shelter in Place” at her Los Angeles studio.
“Authentic Adventures: Acoustic Highway” at Bay Street will comprise music, spoken word, and visual content, “with comedy and improv highly likely,” according to a press release. “I think we’re going to have a tremendously intimate show,” said Ms. Eaton, who may play piano as well as guitar. “I usually deliver some kind of tangential narrative to the music, and with that we’ll have some images, even a couple of videos.”
Guest performers will include Arlethia Lawler and Mr. Rehm-Gerdes. But “the core of the show centers around Jeffrey and his percussion,” Ms. Eaton said, describing Mr. Smith as “a one-man symphony.” “I’ve done more shows with Jeffrey Smith than any other person in the world,” she said. “People always say, ‘That’s going to be bare,’ just percussion and acoustic guitar, but it’s very fat. What he does with percussion is amazing.”
That less-is-more approach is born from the troubadour tradition, Ms. Eaton mused, the working musician on the road armed only with what they carry. That approach works for Ms. Eaton and Mr. Smith on “Shelter in Place” as well, she said, thanks to the additional musicians. “On this record, Jeff and I don’t have to do much, because we have a few more people in this project. The heavy lifting has been distributed.”
Tickets for “Authentic Adventures: Acoustic Highway” are $30 in advance, $40 tomorrow, and are available at the Bay Street Theater box office or at baystreettheater.org.