Here’s a new video for you! “Acappella Instrumental” is on the new album Alaska. The synth-like sounds are actually psychedelic layers of phased vocals.
I recorded the footage at Tanalian Falls, in Lake Clark National Park, Alaska. The audio was written and recorded at Chulitna Lodge. A bird sampled throughout the album is Swainson’s Thrush. The males defend their breeding grounds by singing a series of spiraling notes inflected upward, which to me sounds like a flute through phaser pedals.
… “Take Uno Lady, for example, and her newly released “Alaska,” the result of a residency at the off-the-grid solar-powered Chulitna Lodge, a wilderness retreat in Lake Clark National Park & Preserve. Here, Cleveland transplant Christa Ebert has captured field recordings of herself doing things like banging on a log out in the forest, or birds swooping past her tent at night, and remixed them digitally into background atmospheres, over which she layers what sometimes sounds like dozens of her own vocal tracks. Maybe there’s a bit of keyboard once in a while.
The results are warm and organic, sometimes even catchy, as on “Today’s the Day,” which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Magnetic Fields album. Ebert’s lead vocal is lower register and resonant — “I’ll conjure up some urgency and mend all of the emergencies” — while a chorus of angelic vocals shimmer in the background, accompanied by bugs and birdsong, like Snow White wending her way slowly through the forest. Her vocal range is sorta bonkers.
Her “Venn Diagram,” too, from the “Osmosis” album three years ago, is a delicious bit of indie pop, and she even covered Tom Petty in her early releases. But there’s always something subversive, something new and interesting in the way she constructs her recordings and releases. Her previous release, “Le Flux,” recorded largely in Switzerland and then edited here in Maine, features vocals that are lyricless, and more found sounds turned into beats. Only possible, really, with today’s digital recording techniques, it still manages to transmit an intimacy that should tickle that desire for authenticity….
Maybe you can’t picture them in the room, but you can understand what they’re feeling, and that’s something no machine will ever authentically do.”
I’m ecstatic to announce I have been selected for the artist residency program at Foundation House. I’m honored to be a part of the Foundation House’s creative, philanthropic community.
I’ll be spending a few weeks in Connecticut creating compositions and editing videos. The property is a century old great estate, with a grand manor house, old stables, and greenhouses.
Foundation House represents life at the crossroads; respecting the past, while inspiring the future. Foundation House opens its doors to artists and activists working on projects related to the mission of bettering environmental, community, and mental health. These creatives of all disciplines – painters, writers, sculptors, designers, visionary thinkers and doers – are offered an inspiring retreat, space and time to create (FoundationHousect.org).
I’ll keep you posted on what I’m working on and more about the residency as the details unfold. If you’d like to support my travel to the residency you can through venmo @TheUnoLady and paypal UnoLadyMusic@gmail.com
Thank you Foundation House. I am grateful for the opportunity.
LandEscape is an international art publication for established and emerging artists to engage in professional critique and artistic introspection, that aims to open the dialogue between artists and audience, between thoughts and their articulation.
Christa Ebert, better known as Uno Lady, has been meditating for years. Yet, like many of us, she felt like she couldn’t pay attention for long stretches and never had the time in her busy schedule to stay consistent.
In fact, on her 2014 album Amateur Hour, she wrote a tongue-in-cheek song called “5 Minute Meditation Guide,” in which she pokes fun at her inability to quiet her thoughts for more than five minutes. “Picture all the crap in your life,” she whispers. “Just poop it out.”
“Even though I would try continually, I did think I was bad at mediation,” she says. “Then I was given the knowledge that it’s OK that you’re still thinking when you’re meditating. That’s just what our brains do. It’s just the judgment we tie to those thoughts that can cause distress.”
This breakthrough allowed her to deepen her meditation journey — along which she brings listeners with her January release Grounded. Ebert’s new record is a much-needed hour of peace in a chaotic world. Recorded at home while self-isolating and often right after meditating, the piece, which features the classic, layered Uno Lady vocals as well as field recordings mostly taken from her backyard, works as well as a guided meditation as it does an ambient background listen.
On Grounded, Ebert positions herself more as a well-read facilitator than a mindfulness expert. Expertise is instead pulled from simple books like 101 Meditation Tips or those in the Buddhist canon or local authorities. “Breathe,” for example, features Mourning [A] BLKstar singer LaToya Kent, who works as a meditation teacher. Meanwhile, cellist and practitioner Erica Snowden-Rodriguez offers an inclusive voice on “Meditacion,” which offers Spanish guidance, that is as comforting as their cello playing, even for non-Spanish speakers.
“I’m not trying to say I’m a healer or that this album is going to cure people of anything,” she says. “Music is just a really great communication tool, and there are these practices that have been around for thousands and thousands of years that you can learn from.”
The sonic elements, though more ambient and less structured than her typical pop heartbreakers, will feel more familiar than the lyrical themes to Uno Lady fans who have enjoyed 2014’s Amateur Hour and 2019’s Osmosis. These lush tracks make Ebert one of the area’s most singular artists even amongst Cleveland’s diverse pop music landscape. Grounded’s “Open Your Heart,” for example, features 69 vocal tracks layered, harmonized and manipulated with effects such as reverb (think singing into a cave) into an unrecognizable wall of sound. Only the occasional synthesizer, bell and meditation bowl flourish the 54-minute album.
“These are some of the biggest songs I’ve ever written,” she says. “It was such an exploratory process. They might have been bigger if my computer could handle it.”
The project, which was supported by Spaces Urgent Art Fund and by a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, was also accompanied by an experimental film of the same title, which Ebert shot mostly in her backyard. The film’s animation was created with the help of illustrator Sequoia Bostick.
”I left my one full-time job a few weeks before the pandemic to promote another record and go on tour,” she says. “So, I wanted to stay true to my mission of, you know, having creativity is my core value and my purpose in life.
In making the record, Ebert realized that she was actually pretty good at meditating — even if some of her versions of the practice looked a bit different from tradition. The hypnotic flowstate she reaches while singing (which she compares to traditional chanting) and making music does much of the same things to her brain that meditation sets out to do. She hopes Grounded can be a similar bridge to mindfulness for music fans.
“[Making music] is when I am able to disconnect and process my emotions and thoughts constructively,” she says. “People think meditation is one thing, but really it can be anything that helps you disconnect from worry for a brief moment.”
The artists residency at Chateau Orquevaux was magical and allowed me the focus needed to write and record 15 songs. I drove over 1,500 miles (about 2500km), down bumpy back roads and single lane highways through sunflower fields and wind farms.
The first song recorded was “Dream” by the Everly Brothers. This song has been dear to my heart for as long as I can remember.
I spent a few extra weeks in Europe and performed at LaDIY Festival in Strasbourg, France. I had two performances in Bern, Switzerland, at Cafe Kairo and Voodoo Rhythm Records Hardware Store. The last night of my trip I sang at La Pointe Lafayette, in Paris. I made friends that will be lifelong and was warmly welcomed by pals I haven’t seen in ten years.
I plan to share short stories of my trip throughout the year. If you’d like to stay updated, please subscribe to Unolady.com/subscribe
Since the residency, I’ve been staying busy and released a new record, OSMOSIS, on Volar Records. You can stream, download digital, or order a limited edition green vinyl here.
Here are a few videos and photos from my adventure.
“Sunrise,” was inspired by waking with the sun. Time lapse feature the view from my bedroom window at Chateau Orquevaux.
During the residency, the other artists and I took field trips around town and to nearby cities. While other artists sketched, I took photos and made up melodies. One of the stops was the old stone church in town. I asked if I could sing, and it was there my new favorite hobby was born: Singing in cavernous spaces and belting what feels right. During my trip I sang and recorded improv performances in 5 churches and 1 tunnel.
This next video is an improv performance at Cathédrale Saint-Mammès de Langres (Langres Cathedral) which was built in the 1100’s. It is the first video in the illicit hymn series. An illicit hymn: Singing, uninvited. A collaboration with the architecture and natural reverb. I am sorting through the footage. I hope to find a creative way to share these pieces other than youtube. I’ll keep you posted.
Lastly, I want to share with you the Cow Crooner video. While walking with the other artists, we passed by a pasture. I shared that I grew up in rural Ohio. As a child, there was a farm across the street that had cows and I would sing to them. They encouraged me to sing to this herd, so I did. To my surprise, the cows listened attentively and walk towards me. This is when my second favorite hobby was born: Cow Crooning. I serenaded a few herds throughout the trip and have more videos to share.
