{"id":1600,"date":"2018-03-20T17:17:11","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T17:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/?p=1600"},"modified":"2018-03-23T17:18:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T17:18:14","slug":"ellen-starski-to-release-solo-debut-in-may-rooted-in-lush-indie-folk-orchestral-americana-and-organic-pop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/ellen-starski-to-release-solo-debut-in-may-rooted-in-lush-indie-folk-orchestral-americana-and-organic-pop\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellen Starski to release solo debut in May, rooted in lush indie-folk, orchestral Americana, and organic pop"},"content":{"rendered":"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
\nMarch 20, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ellen Starski to release solo debut album in May<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Days When Peonies Prayed for the Ants<\/i>\u00a0is rooted in\u00a0lush indie-folk, orchestral Americana, and organic pop<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nashville-based singer-songwriter Ellen Starski is set to release her solo debut album,\u00a0The Days When Peonies Prayed for the Ants<\/em>, on May 11, 2018.\u00a0 On the collection, which was written over the course of 12 years, Starski explores \u00a0both her homeland and herself, traveling from the coal country of rural Pennsylvania to the roots-music hotbed of Nashville, Tennessee, and creating a soundtrack to that period of self-discovery. The album is autobiographical and rooted in a lush mix of indie-folk, orchestral Americana, and organic pop.<\/p>\n

A record that\u2019s as dynamic and driven as its creator,\u00a0The Days When Peonie<\/em>s Pra<\/em>yed for the Ants<\/em>\u00a0was recorded in East Nashville and produced by Anne McCue. The album also features a handful of the town\u2019s top players: drummer Paul Griffith (Jason Isbell, k.d. lang),\u00a0bassist Jimmy Sullivan (Lee Ann Womack), pianist Carl Byron (Michelle Shocked, Jim Lauderdale), and drummer Bryan Owings (Emmylou Harris, Tony Joe White).<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Sonically influenced by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan\u2019s Desire, and the Alison Krauss\/Robert Plant collaboration\u00a0Raising Sand<\/em>,\u00a0The Days When Peonies Prayed for the Ants<\/em>\u00a0offers up a combination of sweeping string arrangements, stripped-down piano ballads, finger-plucked folk songs, and everything in between, all held together by a voice that’s both emotional and elastic, singing about the triumphs, missteps, and stories she\u2019s picked up along the way. \u201cThe record is about growth,\u201d Starski explains. \u201cIt\u2019s about all these things that have happened to me, which have helped me blossom as a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/strong>There are songs about loss, heartbreak, and family, all of them filled with details from Starksi\u2019s own life. \u201cMiss You Mary\u201d pays tribute to her mother, who helped steer her daughter out of a dark hole as a teenager. Laced with acoustic guitars and cinematic strings arranged by McCue, \u201cOde to Nanny and Cookie\u201d opens the album with a salute to Starksi\u2019s two grandmothers. Meanwhile, her own daughter inspired the lovely, lilting \u201cDaughter of the Sea,\u201d while the country-inspired \u201cHoney I\u2019m Not Him\u201d was written during a nighttime drive around along the Nashville backroads, with her infant sleeping in the backseat. Personal anecdotes are woven throughout, but\u00a0The Days When Peonies Prayed for the Ants\u00a0<\/em>ultimately delivers a universal message: that you cannot come to grips with yourself until you come to grips with the beautiful wreckage of your past.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been singing in front of people since I was a child,\u201d says Starski. \u201cI\u2019ve been writing songs for years, too, but I\u2019d always hide them when I was singing with blues bands and funk groups. They didn\u2019t fit. Things changed once I had my daughter. It opened up a whole new world to me, and I knew I was strong enough to express how I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Starski was born in Reynoldsville, a town in the woodlands of Western Pennsylvania, amidst the beauty of rural Appalachia. \u201cGrowing up, music was all around me \u2013 everybody in my family sang. My grandmother sang in musical theater and the violinists and banjo players of my family go back generations.\u201d She was raised on a wide spread of music \u2014 the Lilith Fair-era earnestness of Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan; the heartland rock of Tom Petty; the moody, nocturnal music of Portishead; the articulate, lyric-based writing of Aimee Mann.\u00a0 She began playing guitar at 19 years old, before cutting her teeth as the singer of a bluesy bar band. Once she settled in Knoxville, she kicked off her solo career with pub gigs and open mic performances, before she settled in her now-hometown of Nashville.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starski plans to celebrate the release of\u00a0The Days When Peonies Prayed for the Ants<\/em>\u00a0with a show in Nashville; details will be announced soon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ellen Starski online:<\/b>
\nWebsite: \u00a0www.ellenstarski.com<\/a>
\nFacebook:\u00a0\u00a0www.facebook.com\/ellenstarski<\/a>
\nTwitter:\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/twitter.com\/starskiellen<\/a>
\nInstagram: \u00a0www.instagram.com\/ellenstarski<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 20, 2018   Ellen Starski to release solo debut album in May   The Days When Peonies Prayed for the Ants\u00a0is rooted in\u00a0lush indie-folk, orchestral Americana, and organic pop   Nashville-based singer-songwriter Ellen Starski is set to release her solo debut album,\u00a0The Days When Peonies Prayed for the Ants, on May … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Ellen Starski to release solo debut in May, rooted in lush indie-folk, orchestral Americana, and organic pop”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-press-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1600"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1602,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions\/1602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}