Jo Babb
Audio By Carbonatix
You can use several different metrics to measure the passage of time, but for many songwriters, their releases serve as important snapshots of when they were written.
On its debut album, the seed becomes exposed, Fort Collins folk quartet autumnal tackles the cycles of life in growth and rebirth, the passage of time and the relationships that bring us from point A to point B. The band will celebrate the release with a show at the Neighbor on Sunday, September 28.
Fronted by vocalists, songwriters and childhood best friends Annalee Knies (guitar) and Geneva Hein (synthesizer), autumnal has been on a steady upward trajectory throughout this year. The two are joined by bassist Justice Murray and drummer Nina Dorighi on the ten-track, folk-rock album. Throughout the seed becomes exposed, autumnal dips in and out of vulnerable stories about navigating young-adult life, crashing cars and losing those you love, all housed in a cozy, electrified folk sound.
Perhaps fittingly for a band named after a season, the album’s narrative is framed neatly within the context of the natural world, whose themes serve as a metaphor for humans as we grow, change and become newer versions of ourselves. “It’s just an amalgamation of our own growth, and about change, and about driving and crashing cars and starting over,” Hein says. “And about all the stuff that’s in between, like the community that it requires to be able to sustain those things.”
The vocalist explains that the album’s opening track, “beast,” is about the passing of Knies’s beloved pug a few years ago. The track kicks off with soft guitar and synth, lilting harmonies and an introspective crescendo that holds off on percussion until leading seamlessly into the second song, “notes on change.”
“That’s the start of the album. [‘Beast’] is also one of the older songs on there, and it was about just the starting over of something, the growing up of it, the aging of it, the dying of it, and the re-creation of it,” Hein adds. “And I guess that’s also how it has felt since we’ve become autumnal.”
The album continues with the addition of drums and bass on the second track, beneath a rising spoken word poem read by Hein about becoming a tree and morphing into several subsequent natural forms. Emphasizing the natural order of change and resistance to it, the vocalists lead up to the final refrain together, singing and speaking the following lyrics: Every time things feel like they’re standing in one place / It gets uprooted / And we change again / And we soon forget / But I don’t want to lose it to time and memory.
The album was recorded in batches over a long period of time, the musicians note. The first two songs went straight to tape with Mark Anderson of Evergreen’s Cowboy Cowabunga Recordings, while “plum season,” “get up,” “too fast” and “hit n’ run” were done by Murray and Knies at the University of Colorado Denver recording studio. The closing track, “humming song,” which was also the last song written for the album, was done at the Music District in Fort Collins.
Meanwhile, for “breathing,” a single released earlier this year, the band teamed up with co-producers Jim Eno (of Spoon notoriety) and Miranda Fling, as well as Anderson.
“It was really exciting,” Murray says of working with Eno, Fling and Anderson. “I really like the production that we’ve done on our own, and I’m very passionate about the whole audio world, so I think it’s really fun to do that. But there’s also definitely an element of [getting] in my own head about all of the decisions in the recording mixing process.
“I think it’s just so helpful to have other people that could tell us, ‘This is good, or let’s change some stuff here,’ and just give guidance,” Murray adds.
The track showcases a clean, well-produced sound upheld by synth arpeggios and back-and-forth vocals between Knies and Hein. The lyrics again echo themes around time, with the vocalists singing on the chorus: Time was never mine to hold, but tepid grasp, it grows me old / Through every moment that I’m alive, if I’m breathing, it’s not a waste of time.
Following the recording session, Knies says that the musicians reached out to Eno to see if there were any good SXSW sets they should catch while they were there for the festival. After a day, Eno called Knies back and let them know about the opportunity to speak on a Dolby Atmos x Rivian panel. “I definitely think it was the most high-profile thing we’ve ever gotten to do, and it’s definitely the first time any of us were ever able to get on a plane for a music thing,” Hein says.
Following the festival, autumnal went on to make its Bluebird Theater debut in May, opening for iconic Swedish indie-pop band Peter Bjorn & John.
Before autumnal, Knies and Hein were in other bands; as teenagers, they would go to DIY shows at legendary Fort Collins house venues such as Hotel Hillcrest, the Planetarium and the Laundry Room. Today, they run their own house venue, dubbed the Sunspot, where they’re able to help out friends on the road and repay the ever-running karmic debt of DIY culture.
“It’s super cool to be able to kind of keep the reciprocity of the DIY scene going,” Knies reflects. “Where maybe a band that helped us set up a show in Oregon will come through, and then we can kind of return that favor and help them set up a show, and kind of keep the cycle going of the DIY scene. Because it really is just like random people in random houses and in random places.”
The dusty, rocking vibe of DIY culture is reflected on some of the album’s tracks; for example, the fuzzy, discordant riff, cowbell and post-chorus scream on “hit n’ run” offers a contrast to the sweet, warm and gentle soundscapes across much of the album.
Calling back to the idea of the passage of time, Knies and Hein share stories about the road and the scene that make it clear how the topic became such a throughline on the album. Knies notes that the songwriters are both “very time-focused individuals,” and have been that way since they were teenagers. “We just romanticize every moment, I think, and I think that shows in the songs and the autumnal vibe too,” Knies notes. “Yeah, the passage of time is very much a theme throughout.”
When the two were younger, Hein adds, “and maybe even still now sometimes,” they were obsessed with the concept and often spoke as if they were mourning time as it was happening. “Instead of enjoying the moment or whatever, we were already just devastated that this was the last time it was ever gonna happen, just the last time we would all ever be this age in the same room together at this time, with this weather or whatever,” Hein explains. “Like, the sadness that there is to that, but then how that has changed over time, too. The passage of time is amazing, and you can grow into so many things, and then you can start over again, and you can regrow. And nothing is ever actually over.”
These kinds of bittersweet sentiments about change and growth pour out from the album: in reflections on “get up” about the simplicity of youth, on “breathing,” on the kind-hearted friendship anthem “humming song,” which Knies wrote for Hein during a tough time that required relying on friends.
Start to finish, the seed becomes exposed represents a solid debut effort. And as we all make our way through the unrelenting, meandering changes of time, the album serves as an important reminder of what could be characterized as the autumnal ethos: Today is just a season, and tomorrow will always bring something brand new, be it painful, euphoric or both.
Autumnal release show, 7 p.m. Sunday, September 28, the Neighbor, 144 South Mason Street, Fort Collins. Eve Coffman and Prairie are on the bill. Tickets are $12-$15.