Valley Of Heart's Delight Margo Cilker

• 1 Lowland Trail 02:24
• 2 Keep It on A Burner 04:27
• 3 I Remember Carolina 04:54
• 4 Beggar For Your Love 03:27
• 5 Mother Told Her Mother Told Me 03:55
• 6 With The Middle 03:27
• 7 Santa Rosa 02:30
• 8 Crazy or Died 03:14
• 9 Steelhead Trout 02:21
• 10 Sound And Fury 03:34
• 11 All Tied Together 03:34
• Total Runtime 37:47

Info for Valley Of Heart's Delight

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. In this 11-song follow-up to 2021's critically acclaimed Pohorylle, family and nature intertwine as guiding motifs, at once precious and endangered, beautiful and exhausting. Cilker and Pohorylle producer Sera Cahoone brought most of that record's highly-acclaimed crew (studio players for The Decemberists, Band Of Horses, and Beirut) back to the studio with additional contributions from acclaimed Northwest traditionalist Caleb Klauder. Valley of Heart's Delight, Cilker's second record follows a year busily reaping the fruits of Pohorylle's success, with festival appearances at Pickathon, Treefort, and End Of The Road, and tours supporting American Aquarium, Hayes Carll, Drive-By Truckers, and Joshua Ray Walker.

Sera Cahoone, drums, vocals
Margo Cilker, guitars, vocals
Sarah Cilker, vocals
Caleb Klauder, mandolin, vocals
Rebecca Young, bass
Jenny Conlee-Drizos, piano, accordion, organ
Annie Staninec, violin, viola
Paul Brainard, guitars, pedal steel
Kelly Pratt, horns
Ben Walden, composer, vocals, harmonica
John Morgan Askew, banjo

Margo Cilker
is a woman who drinks deeply of life, and her debut record Pohorylle, due fall 2021 on Portland label Fluff and Gravy, is brimming with it. For the last seven years, the Eastern Oregon songwriter, who NPR calls one of “11 Oregon Artists to Watch in 2021,” has split her time between the road and various outposts across the world, from Enterprise, OR to the Basque Country of Spain, forging a path that is at once deeply rooted and ever-changing.

As Pohorylle traverses through the geography of Cilker’s memories—a touring musician’s tapestry of dive bars and breathtaking natural beauty—love is apparent, as is its inevitable partner: loss. For what bigger heartbreak is there than to be a fervent lover who must always keep moving? Cilker seems keenly aware of the precarious footing upon which love stands, and at many turns, the record circles something that is staggeringly beautiful and slipping away.

“I am a woman split between places,” Cilker sings on the album’s wistful closer, touching for a brief moment upon the vast dichotomies of her selfhood and her profession, and the negotiation that she conducts between them.

“I'm just very inquisitive. I’m a very curious person. Why are things this way? Do they have to stay this way? You know, how can things change?” Cilker asks. It is this part of her nature that expands Pohorylle into the complex journey that it is: her ability to crack open a moment of desperation and lay it out on a table to catch a careful light.

Pohorylle, which carries gentle nods to Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt, and Gillian Welch, shines under the instincts of producer Sera Cahoone, whom Cilker first came across in 2019 while planning her first full-length. “I was trying to pin down what kind of sound I wanted and stumbled across a video of Sera and just loved how she performed. I then listened to her last studio record and thought, that's the sound.” Cilker says. “I found out Sera had produced that record herself with John Askew. My friend put me in touch with her and she liked my demos enough to produce the album. It felt very auspicious—It was truly just a gut feeling.”

Cahoone quickly got to work assembling a first-rate band: Jenny Conlee (The Decemberists) on keys, Jason Kardong (Sera Cahoone, Son Volt) on pedal steel, Rebecca Young (Lindsey Fuller, Jesse Sykes) on bass, Mirabai Peart (Joanna Newsom) on strings, Kelly Pratt (Beirut) on horns, and the album’s engineer John Morgan Askew (Neko Case, Laura Gibson) on an array of other instruments. The record also prominently features effortless harmonies from Sarah Cilker, Margo Cilker’s sister and frequent touring partner.

Over the last six years, Margo Cilker has toured extensively across the US and internationally, and is a staple in the independent festival circuit. She looks forward to returning to the road in full swing in 2021.

This album contains no booklet.