An ethereal experience.
With a rich musical upbringing and past, an Americana Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year nominee in 2017, as well as a Grammy nomination to her name, Courtney Hartman has earned a reputation for her work “beneath the surface,” as she puts it. Her resounding harmonies on John Smith’s album ‘The Fray‘ are a case in point. Writing & recording with artists throughout the folk world, Hartman has also developed a distinctive guitar style.
Having been something of a nomad since leaving the family home in 2009, first to study, then touring full-time, collaborating with a variety of artists and releasing two duo albums, ‘Glade‘ is Hartman’s second solo album. Finally, after ten years on the road, she returned to the family home on Glade Road in Colorado. It was there that she wrote this collection of songs “to mend and remake who I was in such a tethered and familial place”.
‘Glade‘ is a delicate, dreamy album. However, the performance quality portrays Hartman’s distinct creative and vocal attributes. With contributions from friends Shane Leonard, Jason Burger, and Tobias Banks (percussion), Gregory Alan Isakov (harmony) and Russell Durham (violin), the album is musically powerful in a meditative sense. All songs are beautifully played with the slow, rhythmic music and questioning lyrics taking you into a trance-like state. It isn’t easy to choose highlights from the song collection as they are all quite similar in sound and feel, taking you on a seamless journey.
