feature photo: Christopher Georgia
The acoustic guitar/bass duo of Jesse Lewis and Ike Sturm made their first record together back in 2017, Endless Field. Their soothing blend of ambient, folk, new age and chamber jazz draws inspiration from forbears like Ralph Towner, Pat Metheny and Michael Hedges, but the true north star of their music is Mother Earth.
Now back with a new album three years later, they’ve adopted the title of the first album for the name of their two-man band. Alive In the Wilderness continues with music that speaks without any words of the beauty and simplicity of nature unsullied by Man, even when they are engaging in intricate fingerings. The debut featured guests like Donny McCaslin, Ingrid Jensen, Chris Dingman and Fabian Almazan. This time, though, they make the music entirely on their own.
We’re highlighting here one of those new tracks, “White Pond Sun,” a song with its genesis in something very personal to the pair. As Sturm recounts:
One night last year Jesse called me to say that his dad had died. I was overwhelmed with emotion and took out my bass to find a place for it. This melody came out immediately, surprising me and recalling the day we all spent together. As we set out to record in the Utah wilderness, we encountered a gigantic pine tree whose canopy reached out over a brook. The sounds of moving water and bird songs filled the air, emerging as influential voices within our group.
The video premiering above is set in that picturesque spot next to the running stream somewhere in the Utah hinterland. As Sturm makes clear, that is not just for show, this is how the track — and all the tracks on Alive In the Wilderness — were recorded using solar-powered recording equipment. So when Lewis and Sturm declare that all the proceeds of Alive In the Wilderness will go to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), that’s just yet another way where they’re putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to preserving the ecology.
And what better soundtrack for the Great Outdoors than music made in the Great Outdoors?
Alive In the Wilderness is now on sale from Biophilia Records.
