Margo Cilker returns with her highly anticipated sophomore LP Valley of Heart’s Delight via Fluff & Gravy Records (Loose Music in the UK/EU). Like her widely acclaimed debut, the 11-track set was produced by Sub Pop alum Sera Cahoone (who also contributes drums) and recorded by John Morgan Askew (Neko Case, Laura Gibson) with studio players from The Decemberists, Band Of Horses, and Beirut.
Valley of Heart’s Delight refers to a place Cilker can’t return: California’s Santa Clara Valley, as it was known before the orchards were paved over and became more famous for Silicon than apricots. Margo is the fifth generation of Cilkers born there, and in this collection of songs, family and nature intertwine as guiding motifs, at once precious and endangered, beautiful and exhausting. The trees here are family trees, or they’re apricot trees, but suburban sprawl isn’t looking good for either. Cilker moved from California to the Pacific Northwest in her mid-twenties and wrote much of Valley of Heart’s Delightwhile living in Enterprise, Oregon, a small town near the Snake River and powered by the river’s massive, publicly-funded hydroelectric dams.
The dams (part of the same system Woody Guthrie was hired to write about) provide clean electricity to much of the western US but make it extraordinarily difficult for anadromous fish (such as Steelhead Trout) to return from the ocean and spawn in their native streams. Valley of Heart’s Delight feeds off of this tension – how we live in and off of nature, how we live within and without family, and why we return to the places we were born.
“I wrote these songs surrounded by the wild landscapes of the Northwest, but I was leaning toward the place I’d come from,”Cilker explains. “I felt cut off from my family and the valley that held them. I spent hours thinking about my sense of belonging. I’d traveled through many places and then, when the travel stopped, I ruminated on where I had ended up. Where were you when the music stopped? I was in Enterprise, OR. And there in Enterprise, my mind drifted back to the Valley of Heart’s Delight. I wrote about family — about death and rebirth, and the arcs of love and art through a family line. There are songs that hint at missteps and redemption. There are songs about trees: in orchard rows, family trees, redwoods. And water: agricultural runoff, wild rivers, dammed rivers, baptismal flows. And there’s a song about a fish, cause it’s a damn good song and I wanted to record it.”
Cilker initially announced Valley of Heart’s Delight with opener “Lowland Trail,” named one of the “20 Best Country Songs of 2023 So Far” by Rolling Stone whoexclaimed, “The singer-songwriter is poised to have a breakout year.” She followed with album standout “Keep It On A Burner,” which was named one of “5 Must-Hear New Country Songs” by Billboard Magazine and is currently in the Top 15 on the Americana Radio Singles Chart. Cilker most recently revealed a stirring performance of her latest single, “With The Middle,” filmed live at The Seasons Performance Hall in Yakima, WA.
Cilker is soon to embark on an extensive U.S. tour throughout this fall. See below for full tour details.
Valley Of Heart’s Delight Tracklisting:
1) Lowland Trail
2) Keep It On A Burner
3) I Remember Carolina
4) Beggar For Your Love
5) Mother Told Her Mother Told Me
6) With The Middle
7) Santa Rosa
8) Crazy Or Died
9) Steelhead Trout
10) Sound & Fury
11) All Tied Together
Margo Cilker On Tour:
October 5 — Zootown Arts Community Center — Missoula, MT
October 6 — Live from the Divide — Bozeman, MT
October 7 — Live from the Divide — Bozeman, MT
October 10 — Turf Club — St. Paul, MN
October 11 — Shitty Barn Sessions — Spring Green, WI
October 12 — Back Room at Colectivo — Milwaukee, WI
October 13 — Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon — Iowa City, IA
October 14 — Schubas Tavern — Chicago, IL
October 17 — Monarch Tavern — Toronto, ON
October 18 — Club Cafe — Pittsburgh, PA
October 19 — Mercury Lounge — New York, NY
October 21 — MilkBoy — Philadelphia, PA
October 22 — DC9 — Washington, DC
October 24 — Cat’s Cradle Back Room — Carrboro, NC
October 25 — Evening Muse — Charlotte, NC
October 26 — Grey Eagle — Asheville, NC
October 28 — JJ’s Bohemia — Chattanooga, TN
October 29 — 3rd & Lindsley — Nashville, TN
November 17 — Tractor Tavern — Seattle, WA
November 18 — Polaris Hall — Portland, OR
November 19 — Polaris Hall — Portland, OR
