Trees for clouds is the latest album for Michigan-based Jessica Wolfbird, a conservatory-trained pianist and songwriter. She has been making music for decades under various names (including Jessica in The Rainbow and Jessica Fogle), and her music has scored the film Were the World Mine (featuring Wendy Robie from Twin Peaks) and a commercial for Cheetos. Her credentials are immediately apparent, with an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU; her musical background reads like a CV, and Trees for clouds is her thesis.
The 8-song piano rock album clocks in at over an hour. It’s about as structured and disciplined a release that I have heard recently—a mature-sounding record from an overtly mature genre of music: piano rock. Although perhaps a better way to describe its sound is as chamber pop without any strings (in the style of Joanna Newsom). Still, there is a whimsical and childlike quality in Wolfbird’s songwriting; her vocals are innocent, mature, and raw.
A melancholy piano line from “New & Old & New (Never gets old…)” kicks off the record. It slowly builds up until the listener anticipates a crescendo. It delivers in the form of crashing cymbals and wispy vocals. The song is orchestral and sets the pace for the rest of the record. Next of which is “Becomefortable”, a rich eight-minute long ballad. It starts with the consistent chamber-like piano, before the hard-hitting drums, played by Nathan Coles, introduce themselves and provide the heartbeat for the second half of the song. This piano and drums trade-off is a trademark in the first half of the record. The cymbals consistently crash beautifully as the piano climaxes, heard on the following tracks, “Return to the Sky” and “Mostly clouds & light”.
The latter half of the album marks a shift in style, containing Wolfbird’s piano and her voice without drums or other backing instrumentation. However, they still contain the dynamics present in the first five songs. They are all at least six minutes long but contain very few moments of just instrumentation without Wolfbird’s voice, which keeps them sounding busy without dragging on for too long—like a story being sung directly to the listener. It’s worth mentioning that while all the songs on the album could be classified as ballads, “The Light & the dark” feels the closest to an epic, clocking in at over 18 minutes. It peaks around the 13-minute mark, where the vocals sound perhaps the strongest they do in the entire record, as Wolfbird dives into the high end of her range, something she does sparsely, though giving the listener a treat each time she does.
Trees for clouds is a bit of a juxtaposition. It’s performed by a conservatory-trained pianist but written on a thumb piano, a mini Casio, and even a ukulele. The songs are structured and disciplined but written on the road (in 2015 & 2016), on Wolfbird’s self-described “songwriting adventures”. Most of the songs are ballads—indie adult contemporary tracks— sung from soft, wispy, and delicate vocals.
This record sits outside the music we usually review here, and for some, may take multiple listens to fully grasp it—like reading a sentence with multiple meanings. However, it’s a piece of art that is wholeheartedly singular, and that in itself is worth revisiting. Trees for clouds is unapologetically original and comes from an artist who has mastered what they’re best at: turning flawless piano playing into delicate piano rock ballads.
Written by C.S. Comfort
