Park Hills Circle — "For Fans of Tori Amos, Kate Bush"

I just got a press release with the subject line "Park Hills Circle (FFO Tori Amos, Kate Bush) Release New Single 'Unspoke'" and subsequently learned "FFO" means "for fans of." 😄

Anyway, I have no real knowledge of this artist but I listened to her song and it's nice sounding--I haven't paid attention to the lyrics--and figured I would share the info because I've never received an announcement of any musical artist before that compared them with Tori! Here's the announcement in case anyone is interested in discovering a new artist:

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Chicago’s Park Hills Circle captures the quiet power of renewal on her softly sun-kissed second single “Spring Is Here,” an enchantingly dreamy folk reverie that traces the path from heartbreak to self-acceptance with warmth, grace, and a sense of gentle forward motion. - Atwood Magazine
 

PARK HILLS CIRCLE’s upcoming debut album, All of a Sudden, out July 10th via Pravda Records, celebrates the thriving that comes from hard-won healing and growth— a surfacing to the light. Park Hills Circle is the genre-expansive project of Alaskan-Irish artist Maris O’Tierney, currently based in Chicago. Today, Park Hills Circle releases her latest single “Unspoke.” Cocooned in warm synth waves, “Unspoke” gently ascends from a state of depression to a revelatory sense of hope, carried by ethereal vocals [I can’t tell you why I feel more alive these days / after a certain number of miles, your breath catches up to you]. 

Maris explains: “Unspoke” emerged on a sleepless night in the wake of a heavy Chicago thunderstorm. While I was finding the daily rhythms of making my own home, after a period of living with my twin sister, I also found myself disoriented by dark depression. Looking for comfort, I took out my classical guitar, and the warm tone of the nylon strings shifted something. Words came to me after days of inner silence, and I experienced my surroundings in a surreal way: “...heat wave / we watch until the self fades / I took all the hands off the kitchen clock; / could we learn to tell time with our memory?..” When I finally fell asleep, I dreamt of my first home, the coastline of Alaska. I was a whale, swimming upward from cold ocean depths to shimmering warm sunlight above, surfacing for air: “... I can’t tell you why / I feel more alive these days / after a certain number of miles, your breath catches up to you…” Writing the rest of the song guided me through the following days. Arranging the chorus vocal harmonies felt like a gentle cushion, a feeling I wanted to create for listeners, too. The lyrics helped remind me of who I am: reflecting on the fearlessness and wonder of my childhood self; the compassion of friends who loved me even at my (and often their) lowest point; and the strength of my Irish ancestors who sang as a ritual to heal. My original guitar part informed the full arrangement of “Unspoke”, though it’s not present on the final recorded version; I intentionally peeled back that element to reveal the spectrum of light in my collaborator Aaron Otheim’s synths and piano.”

All of a Sudden holds many seasons, equal parts tender and tenacious. Its sonic world is multifaceted, from atmospheric to folk-pop, with a few jazz inflections. Maris, a classically trained guitarist and soprano (voice/opera), composes ethereal, traveling fingerstyle motifs and arranges nuanced, nested vocal harmonies. This palette is imbued with the places where she grew up: the ancient mysticism and storytelling of seaside Ireland, and the freedom and scope of mountainous Alaska.

All of a Sudden is a record of transition. Maris collaborated with her twin sister, violinist and poet Bryce, for nearly a decade in the duo Maeve & Quinn, performing, recording, and touring from their shared home in Chicago. Following Bryce’s move to Colorado, a new musical channel opened for Maris, arising from rhythms of living alone, caring for mental health, and finding trust in a romantic partnership. Maris gravitated toward her roots in classical guitar, soprano art songs and opera melodies, and experimented with arrangements on loop pedal and piano. New songs and collaborators coalesced from this imaginative space, forming the project of Park Hills Circle.

Maris recorded All of a Sudden at Chicago’s Bim Bom Studios with engineer Michael MacDonald. Her collaborations with Aaron Otheim (synths/piano) and Dustin Laurenzi (saxophone) are integral to the album’s multidimensional sound. Aaron’s shared musical sensibility and grounding in nature (his Pacific Northwest to Maris’ Alaska and Ireland) lends itself to a rich synth landscape, from dark oceanic depths to shimmering aurora heights. Dustin brings his improvisational ethos to lyrical extensions of Maris’ vocal lines, as well as textured chordal work that enhances the rhythm section of fellow jazz musicians Quin Kirchner (percussion) and Matt Ulery (bass).

The lyrics and instrumentation of All of a Sudden convey the nonlinear way we process our experiences and understand our memories over time — how growth shows us what we hold to be sacred and true. The songs are adaptive, moving deftly between styles and genres to fit the shifting emotions; not seeking to resolve emotional and relational complexities, but to hold and feel through them. The insistent guitar riff and climbing vocal lines on “Company We Keep” embody the tensions of an unraveling relationship [For all the times you chose a way out / I chose a way through]. “Clearing” inhabits a space between, its sweeping vocal chorus and saxophone outro giving voice to a keener sense-of-self when facing a beloved [I need a clearing / I need you to do more of the revealing].

The lilting, jazz-inflected vocal melody of “Spring is Here”, set to a rolling guitar motif, affirms a resilience and abundance in returning to self-love [You couldn’t see past the in between…now I’m drinking full the hours of my own company]. The album’s title track - and its closer - “All of a Sudden” further uplifts this sense of sacred, steady return [On my own, I know I’m home again], with lush fingerstyle guitar carrying on toward hopeful possibility [I still have the grief you gave me / but it’s not all I kept].