The story of Pink Stone begins in the late fall of 2016 when friends invited Wren to house-sit their cabin in Washington’s Methow Valley (USA), a place of epic mountain peaks and wild rivers in the traditional territory of the Methow People. Worn-down and out of songs after years of battling a mysterious illness, she accepted the invitation and left her old life behind to stay for a time at their remote cabin in the woods, lovingly called Moose Lodge.

The body of music and writings that emerged from that first month by the river, and grew over several years of extended returns to the valley, became Wren’s 3rd album, Pink Stone: Songs from Moose Lodge, produced at Airtime Studios in Bloomington, Indiana by David Weber (Moira Smiley, Carrie Newcomer, Straight No Chaser) and featuring Jason Wilber (John Prine band), Krista Detor, and world flutist Gary Stroutsos. At times both melancholic and joyous, the ten-song album showcases Wren’s emotive vocals and classical-guitar accompaniment, bolstered by roots/Americana instrumentation and soothing textures of electric guitars and harmony vocals.

To accompany the album, Wren is releasing a 98-page Companion Book of essay vignettes, journal entries, illustrations, photos, and lyrics born from her time in the Methow (contact wren@wrenmusic.net for press copies).

Wren says of Pink Stone: Songs from Moose Lodge

“The years I was writing these songs were some of the loneliest years of my life, but they were also imbued with a palpable magic, and I’ve spent the period since obsessed with how to transport the listener to the warm cocoon of a cabin where I felt free to move at my own pace for the first time. Though I was often alone, I wasn’t unattached. My relationships merged with this greater experience of place and led to a collection of songs about the paradoxes of love and intimacy, where the land and the river often become other characters in the story.”

The resulting music flows like water through the dark, offering warm arms for starless nights and messages of resilience for difficult times.

Pink Stone follows in the steps of Wren’s two earlier place-based albums. Her second album, Stitch an Ocean (2016), described by fRoots as a “heartfelt love-letter to Galicia,” Spain, featured her interpretation of two traditional Galician folksongs in addition to originals. Her first album, Bone Nest (2013), deemed “a perfect soundtrack for our misty Pacific Northwest winters” by DJ Kitty (KSER), was inspired by her coming of age with the plants, animals, and landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, where she grew up in traditional Duwamish territory.

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