Crushwater’s The Wasteland is anything but

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The Wasteland, the upcoming release from Crushwater, paints melodic vistas as glorious and varied as their home state of Washington. Primary vocalist and guitarist Scott Sullivan’s raspy baritone and Chandra Johnson’s improvisational violin solos lift us to crisp melodic mountaintops, across shimmering sonic plains and down to the powerful Pacific. Stops for a reel around the barroom or a love affair punctuate the journey.

Sullivan’s own path to music was circuitous. After travelling the world as a surf and snowboard photographer, he opened Strait Slice Pizza Company, a hub for artists and musicians to fuel both their bodies and their creativity. After classically-trained violinist Chandra Johnson walked into the pizzeria looking for work, Crushwater grew out of a mutual interest with all things pizza and music. To this duo, music—like pizza—is an art form; both need quality ingredients and careful craftsmanship to make magic, and Sullivan’s raw, emotional songwriting and Johnson’s classical training work together as flawlessly as kneaded flour and yeast. Any downtime at the restaurant became songwriting and rehearsal time, and, between customers, Sullivan and Johnson built an arsenal of songs which became Wasteland.

Scott Sullivan told Elmore: “Making an album like this is a journey. The songs are born out of inspiration which appears only when it wants to, there’s no forcing it. Then, the better part of the year spent in and out of the recording studio trying to bring the songs alive and capture the feeling that they were first written with, that, in its own right, can be a separate journey. Now that that is all done, we are ready to release it out into the ether.

“We sing of universal human truths that, hopefully, a lot of people can relate to. To me as a listener, finding that relationship within a song is one of the great joys of life. We hope you enjoy listening to The Wasteland and connect with some of the heart and soul that we put into it.”

Enjoy the entire journey.

The tunes on the new record were recorded with Bill Yates (Raygun Carver) at Dungeness Community Studios in Sequim and with Pete Remine (Clinton Fearon, Adrian Xavier) at Dubtrain Studios in West Seattle. The recordings were brought to fruition with the help of local musician friends to bring the arrangements to life.