Our first Songscape location has just been declared a National Monument by President Obama!
KTAADN Music Video Release
We gave you a peek at Parsonsfield performing in a canoe a few weeks ago, but today you can see the KTAADN music video in its entirety! The latest Songscape song is even more meaningful when you can see the experiences and landscape that inspired Parsonsfield during the Songscape: Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area retreat. Check out this music video to see the band in action in the woods and waters that might become America's next national park.
Additionally, please do consider purchasing the song HERE, as proceeds will help us bring you more Songscapes in the future!
This song, KTAADN, and its music video, are the product of Sustain's Songscape program. Songscapes partner bands with public land organizations for a week of outdoors-inspired songwriting. The band creates a song influenced by their experiences and the landscape, and donates it to their host land group.
Songscape: Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area- SONG RELEASE DAY!
Less than a year after our founding, Sustain’s first Songscape song is officially released! You can now purchase ‘KTAADN’, by folk-rock band Parsonsfield, at their website HERE.
KTAADN is the product of Songscape: Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area. Songscapes are Sustain’s songwriting retreats, where we partner bands with public land organizations. Through the hospitality of host land groups, we send bands out for a few days of immersion in protected landscapes. The musicians use this time to write a song inspired by their experiences and their environment. This song is then donated to the host land group, and used to inspire and encourage audiences to value these landscapes.
In our first Songscape project, we partnered folk-rock band Parsonsfield, with Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area in Maine. Parsonsfield, formed in Connecticut in 2010, has played their rowdy Americana folk music across the USA and throughout Canada. David Vescey, from The New York Times writes, “They harmonize; they play saws, mandolins and pump organs; they back their songs with crickets and squeaking screen doors; they are boisterously youthful yet deftly sentimental...”. Theirs is a sound that has its roots in Maine as well. The name, Parsonsfield, comes from the rural town in southwest Maine where they recorded their first album. Those crickets and squeaking screen doors were courtesy of the old farmhouse recording studio there, called Great North Sound Society. Parsonsfield was very excited to pilot the Songscape program, and spend a week in Maine exploring Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area (KWWRA).
Located in the shadows of Mount Katahdin, Maine’s highest and most storied peak, Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area offers a sneak peak of land that one day could become a new national park and national recreation area. The land, bordered on the west by Baxter State Park and with the amazing East Branch of the Penobscot River running through its heart, includes unparalleled opportunities for traditional outdoor recreation and an opportunity to see firsthand the woods and waters that have helped to define the state. It is KWWRA’s hope that the Katahdin region, and KWWRA specifically, will gain public support to become America’s next national park and recreation area. This unique and beautiful landscape has such a rich history and ecology, and it deserves to be shared with the nation.
For our Songscape: Katahdin Woods and Waters Recreation Area project, Parsonsfield spent a week at KWWRA, at off-the-grid Lunksoos Camps on the banks of the East Brach of the Penobscot River. The first night, local KWWRA supporters welcomed Parsonsfield with a feast and bonfire- a friendly welcome that set the tone for the rest of the retreat. The band hiked Barnard Mountain and saw the Katahdin landscape cloaked in fiery autumn foliage. They went looking (and calling!) for moose. They saw glowing sunsets, and canoed in the same waters that Henry David Thoreau paddled. Parsonsfield had a wealth of experiences and beauty to draw from while writing and composing their Songscape song, KTAADN.
On the band’s final day at KWWRA, we filmed a music video of KTAADN, with the whole band playing in a canoe. This video will be available on Sustain's Youtube channel next week. Parsonsfield has also been performing the song on dry land, at shows across the northeast.
After the retreat, Sustain arranged for Parsonsfield to record their Songscape song at Dirt Floor, a recording studio in Haddam, CT. Dirt Floor, run by Eric Lichter, is one of the original members of Sustain's Green Roster program. Green Roster is a community of bands, luthiers and recording studios which pledge to uphold environmental practices in their businesses. Dirt Floor has been a great supporter of Sustain and generously donated a free recording session for this project. Another Green Roster band member, Greg Dyson of Hanging Hills, donated his graphic arts skills in designing the KTAADN album cover. Sustain is very grateful for everyone's support.
All of this work has culminated in today's release of KTAADN. Parsonsfield has donated the song to Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area to use in their marketing materials, and has made the song available to anyone who would like to purchase it on their website. The proceeds of the song sales will help support Sustain, KWWRA and the band, so we can continue to bring you great music, a great landscape, and future Songscape projects.
Sustain would like to especially thank the following people for supporting Songscape: Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area and taking a chance on our new organization and our pilot project. Lucas St. Clair (president of Elliotsville Plantation, which founded KWWRA), Susan and Mark Adams (KWWRA Ambassadors & Hosts), Simon Roosevelt, the members of Parsonsfield (Antonio Alcorn, Chris Freeman, Harrison Goodale, Erik Hischman and Max Shakun), Eric Lichter, Greg Dyson, and the Board of Sustain Music and Nature (Ricky Hernandez, Maggie Comstock, Nicole Reese, Aubrey Gallegos, Harrison Goodale and Betsy Mortensen).
Songscape: KWWRA Song Release on Feb. 2
Guess what! You'll be able to listen to and purchase the very first Songscape song, KTAADN, on February 2nd!
The Songscape was held this past October in Maine at Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area with Americana Folk Rock band, Parsonsfield. The band spent a week in the shadow of Mount Katahdin, enjoying all the land had to offer and using their experience to write a song inspired by the landscape.
Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area encompasses 100,000 acres, managed by a Maine foundation, Elliotsville Plantation, Inc. It's open to the public and is working to become America's next National Park. Sustain and Parsonsfield were deeply impressed by the land and people of KWWRA and are excited to share this Songscape song, KTAADN, with the world.
Proceeds from sales of KTAADN will support Parsonsfield, Sustain and Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area.
Sustain also thanks Greg Dyson, of Green Roster band Hanging Hills, for donating his graphic art skills to create this album cover.
Check out Parsonsfield HERE and Katahdin Woods & Waters HERE.
In-Depth Songscape: Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area
In The Maine Woods, Thoreau brings us to the “mossy and moosey” forests, rivers, and lakes of the northernmost state of New England. His writing transports us from reading chairs and puts our minds among mosquitos and balsam air. “…at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semi-human cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.” With Sustain’s first Songscape songwriting retreat at Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area, we will be bringing a new sound to the Maine woods. And it is our hope that this new song will be able to evoke the same imagery and feel of the landscape that inspires its lyrics and rhythms. With Americana folk band, Parsonsfield, crafting the music, we think we can bring a new wave of appreciation to the wilds of Maine.
Parsonsfield and Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area (KWWRA) are the first participants in Sustain’s Songscape project. Songscapes are band songwriting retreats hosted at, and by, public land organizations. Sustain matches bands and public land stewardship groups for a week of outdoor recreation, ecological education, and landscape immersion. Bands use these experiences as inspiration to write a song. After the retreat, the song is professionally recorded and donated to the host land organization to use in their marketing materials. The song is also sold online, with proceeds being split between the musicians, Sustain, and the land group.
Sustain believes that crafting emotional connections to nature is integral to fostering an environmental ethic. Music excels at drawing out emotions in listeners, and it is our hope that Songscape songs will help craft connections between audiences and landscapes. We want bands’ audiences to be introduced to great public lands via great music. We also want bands who care about the environment to gather new fans from the organizations and landscapes that host them. Songscapes celebrate both the natural world and excellent music.
Parsonsfield, who will be staying at KWWRA from October 11-15 this fall, is a great band to kick off the Songscape project. Formed in Connecticut in 2010, the band has played their rowdy Americana folk music across the USA and throughout Canada. David Vescey, from The New York Times writes, “They harmonize; they play saws, mandolins and pump organs; they back their songs with crickets and squeaking screen doors; they are boisterously youthful yet deftly sentimental...”. Theirs is a sound that has its roots in Maine as well. The name, Parsonsfield, comes from the rural town in southwest Maine where they recorded their first album. Those crickets and squeaking screen doors were courtesy of the old farmhouse recording studio there, called Great North Sound Society.
Parsonsfield is excited to go back to Maine and have a week of outdoor fun and songwriting at Katahdin Woods and Waters Recreation Area. This area is a special part of Maine, with world-class outdoor recreation opportunities including fishing, hunting, hiking, snowmobiling, canoeing and mountain biking.
Located in the shadows of Mount Katahdin, Maine’s highest and most storied peak, Katahdin Woods & Waters Recreation Area offers a sneak peak of land that one day could become a new national park and national recreation area. The land, bordered on the west by Baxter State Park and with the amazing East Branch of the Penobscot River running through its heart, includes unparalleled opportunities for traditional outdoor recreation and an opportunity to see firsthand the woods and waters that have helped to define the state. It is KWWRA’s hope that the Katahdin region, and KWWRA specifically, will gain public support to become America’s next national park and recreation area. This unique and beautiful landscape has such a rich history and ecology, and it deserves to be shared with the nation.
Post retreat, Sustain’s Green Roster Member recording studio, Dirt Floor, in Haddam, CT, is donating recording services on November 9. Parsonsfield will produce a polished version of the song they created up at KWWRA, and it will be for sale on the Sustain website shortly after. You’ll also see it in KWWRA’s marketing materials as they gather public support for national park and national recreation area designation. Sustain will bring you music videos, sound clips, and other media from the Songscape retreat, so keep watch on this new and exciting project.