“I guess ‘Spring Eternal’ is from the perspective of looking back on your life,” says singer/songwriter Emory Duncan. “It’s about learning to surrender to the passage of time and realizing we’re a part of the natural order, rather than battling against it. Time has a way of polishing the edges of pain, leaving you with nothing but the smooth and perfect memory of everything good.”
That lived-in philosophy feels particularly at home in Duncan’s current surroundings. Originally from Houston, he spent five years in Los Angeles before moving with his wife to a log cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He now divides his time between songwriting, working at a nearby winery and heading outdoors to backpack, snowboard and climb.
Duncan grew up absorbing his father’s country records and his mother’s classic rock, learning guitar largely by ear. That instinctive approach continues to guide his pastoral, weathered indie folk. Rather than setting up in a conventional studio, Duncan and producer Jamie Mefford (Gregory Alan Isakov, Nathaniel Rateliff) spent roughly a week recording Semicircles And Half Written Songs at Duncan’s home. While introspection is a common theme on the EP, “Spring Eternal” reaches beyond that, aiming for something more elemental.
“Nothing truly perfect can last very long,” says Duncan. “Perfection is as fleeting as a glance or the orange moment in the sky before the sun starts to rise. But almost paradoxically, there’s a timeless quality in these brief moments, where the present and the infinite seem intertwined, and the universe shows itself. The eternal spring is everything that contains the infinite in the brevity of a second: life, death, youth, sex, ecstasy, love and rebirth.”
We’re proud to premiere Emory Duncan’s “Spring Eternal.” The self-released Semicircles And Half Written Songs is out tomorrow.
—Hobart Rowland