On Lia Ices’ forthcoming LP Family Album, clarity prevails. She was pregnant when the writing began, and she would have to walk through a rose garden to get to her studio. It was, to Ices, a “total Eden.”
“I wrote ‘Young on the Mountain’ to crystallize the feelings I had right after we moved to Moon Mountain in Sonoma—I had a sense of freedom I’d never felt before, like I could really create my own reality and a way of life that I hadn’t even dreamt of yet,” says Ices. “Living amongst towering oaks and fruit trees, reading the California naturalist poets, being so close to the birds and sky. The mountain changed me and my songwriting, and reinforced the notion that the more real life gets, the more mystical it feels.”
Family Album captures the nature, the tranquility, the spirituality that comes with inhabiting such a beautiful space—one where growth is inevitable. Ices’ past works have reckoned with her residence on the East Coast, and this is her first piece of art about California.
Listen to “Young on the Mountain” below. Family Album is out January 29, 2021 via her own label Natural Music.
