Promising intimate debut from Nashville-based Northeasterner.
Carly King was born in New Jersey, came of age around New York City and spent her young adult years in the West, teaching snowboarding in Wyoming and Colorado. She is now based in Nashville. At age four, King lost her father to the terrorist attacks of 11th September 2001. She grew up with a vivid sense of life’s uncertainty and a profound drive to find its purpose.
Loving You Is Easy is King’s first full-length, 10-track, 27-minute album, and is independently released. As she doesn’t have a Bandcamp presence, the sole source for physical copies is her website. It can be found on streaming services. Prior to Loving You Is Easy, King released a series of singles going back to 2020 and an EP, From A To B, in 2024.
The album was recorded at Cloverdale Studios with Shane Travis producing and playing most of the instruments, with the exception of pedal steel, which is contributed by Kapali Long. Long adds backing vocals along with King, Travis and Heather Mae. King wrote all the songs apart from two co-writes with Mae (Sweep, Same Room) and one with Garret Miles (Sister Cece).
The record opens with Three Martinis which is based on an early date with her now-fiancé. It’s a close and intimate song with King’s affection clear in the vocal. Sweep is based around a story of a couple finding their way in life. What they do is irrelevant to their determination to do it together.
Third song, Same Room is set to a country tune with double vocal (duet or multitracked) and Long’s pedal steel prominent. The voices lead the listener on a reflection on fate and coincidence. The title track returns to the theme of togetherness and making it despite all. She sings “Loving you is easy/ it’s a life that’s hard / it’s the world that’s breaking/ not my heart”. The song begins very softly before the band drops in and seems to up the tempo, adding organ and breathy harmonies.
The first track on side two is a recording of King’s grandmother sharing her views on life at Christmas 2024. It runs into Sister Cece, another song with a country flavour to it and a semi-yodelled “you” starting the first two couplets. The song’s lead character has some issues reconciling how she lives her life within a community where faith is strong. King shares the love for the individual above the rules. Travis adds a nice acoustic guitar solo.
God In You riffs on a similar theme about finding God in the person rather than in the world. The centrepiece of the second side is The King, The Knight, The Morning, which reads like an outright love song/letter, touching on the accidents of coming together, genuinely making their lives together, marriage and children.
The penultimate song, Ramona, starts with a familiar guitar figure while King’s vocal tells of a girl growing up in New York and looking to the city to look out for her “Brooklyn take her in /keep her safe / one day”. King’s phrasing is a delight on this track. The song’s melody is enhanced by Travis’ piano. King brings her debut to a close with Boots another heartfelt love song with a single acoustic guitar and King’s voice. There’s a hint of a conversation in the run-off, which adds to the fireside intimacy. King’s skill is writing stories that speak from the heart, set to very listenable tunes. The production and instrumentation manage to enhance the song while being spare enough to stay out of its way.
