Darkly personal folk album may or may not be solely about nachos
Eden the Cat, the indie folk persona of Eden Rohatensky who plays with Regina’s Orphan Mothers and Eden and Escrow, has unveiled her debut solo album.
Entitled Amateur, the release features nine tracks of dark vocal-driven folk, which was written, recorded and released all within one week in Saskatoon, says Rohatensky.
“Right before I recorded Amateur I challenged myself to do 30 days of 30 covers, which meant I wasn’t writing any of my own songs during that time,” she says. “I tend to write fairly regularly and so it was borne out of frustration of not having time to do that and having all of these new ideas come up then.”
Lyrically, Amateur deals with “the ever-confusing nature of being lonely and angry” – it also might just be about nachos, according to a blog post written by Rohatensky. Musically, however, there is little to do with chips or cheese.
Amateur opens with a dusky a cappella number, which serves as an introduction to the stripped-down nature of the album. Aside from a sparely strummed acoustic guitar, Rohatensky’s voice remains a sole beacon amidst the tense domesticity that pervades throughout, especially on standout track “Ghost”.
While she is still in the planning stages of unveiling the songs on stage, Rohatensky says the impetus of the album was to create something of a studio departure from her other projects.
“I play with Orphan Mothers and Eden and Escrow and both of those projects are with classically trained musicians,” she says. “So this solo album was an experiment to see if I could do something on my own. There was also a lot more freedom to write lyrically, and it allowed me to make something really personal.”
– Featured photo credit: Sabrina Millis