To celebrate the release of his new album When the Day Leaves, Valley Maker (Austin Crane) has announced a March 20 livestream concert. Austin will be joined by long-time collaborator Amy Godwin and the show is being presented by Ground Control’s GCTV platform. The concert will air at 8pm EST and the link will remain live for 48 hours thereafter. Tickets are available HERE.  

Crane has also shared the video for When the Day Leaves newest single “Branch I Bend.” Of the song and video, he notes “The ‘Branch I Bend’ video was filmed in a nature preserve on Edisto Island, SC. I wrote ‘Branch I Bend’ as a reflection on time and the cyclicality of life through different seasons. I love the environment in which the video is shot because of how it makes me experience time and impermanence: the beach is only accessible for a portion of the day at low tide; the old trees scattered around the beach reflect their own life cycles; there are occasional monuments of piled-up branches and conch shells; the waves keep coming in and going out in their cyclical pattern. I felt like writing the lyrics by hand added an imperfect, human element to the video; I like how this reflects an impermanent, repetitive human process over the sky and water. I worked with a design and printmaking studio here in Columbia, The Half and Half, to scan and transfer my handwritten lyrics. Dustoftheground, who captured the film footage, stacked the video on top of itself several times, such that each layer was offset by a single frame with varying opacities to produce a kind of ghosting effect that matches the surreal quality of the landscape.” 

When the Day Leaves (Frenchkiss Records) marks Valley Maker’s fourth studio album. The pandemic has seen us all become experts in the imbalance of uncertainty these days, newly accustomed to canceling plans and tentatively rescheduling them for some future we can only imagine. For Crane – a ruminative songwriter, riveting guitarist, and singular voice – such a sense of uncertainty has emerged as his steadfast companion these last few years, a period of profound transition. It’s prompted him to appreciate the present even as he analyzes it, to acknowledge the future’s limitless possibilities even as he recognizes its potential perils. This flux is the anchor for When the Day Leaves. Through his compelling accounting of the past and his reckoning with this moment, Crane stares down the “part of life that remains unknown.” Stream/purchase When the Day Leaves HERE.