dear you. we are wren & the weather. two voices, one kitchen table, and a guitar that has never once been on time. wren writes the words down; the weather decides how they get sung. we live on the wet side of british columbia. it rains. we make the sort of songs you lean in for.
this page is a letter, not a billboard. nothing here flashes, nothing follows you around. read it the way you would read anything left on a kitchen table with your name on it. slowly, twice, with the kettle on.
i. the songs p. 2
we kept the quiet ones. the loud ones kept themselves. they always do. what is left is six songs that fit in a coat pocket, recorded in one long evening with the window cracked so the rain could keep time. the record is called field notes for the wintering, and it is short on purpose.
below is the card we tape to the monitor most nights, so you will know exactly what you are walking into.
set list
sung most nights, in this order
- corduroy coat“you left it on the hook so the cold would know your name”
- galiano“the ferry wake unstitches the sea, then mends it up again”
- kitchen radio“static where the chorus was; we hummed the missing parts”
- blackberry august“the thorns ask a little blood for all that sweetness given”
- the quiet ones“we kept the quiet ones for the rooms that kept us”
- woodstove“banked low against the morning, like a fire meant to keep”
encores are decided by the room, not by us
ii. the kitchen calendar p. 3
our shows live on the calendar by the stove, between the tide chart and a recipe for soda bread. a date circled in rust means we will be there early, tuning quietly. bring someone you miss.
| su | mo | tu | we | th | fr | sa |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 |
st james hall, vancouver the wooden room; we play soft and it carries. doors at seven, tea at the back. |
||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
the wise hall lounge, east van the small room downstairs, lamps on the tables. come early, sit close. |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
a barn, fraser valley (near abbotsford) hay bales and borrowed lamps. bring a blanket, it gets cold out there. |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
|
someone’s living room (ask kindly) a sunday afternoon show. shoes off at the door; the cat decides the encore. |
26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
the dates, written out
- sat · oct 3 · st james hall, vancouver
- sat · oct 10 · the wise hall lounge, east van
- sat · oct 17 · a barn in the fraser valley
- sun · oct 25 · someone’s living room (ask kindly)
iii. photographs p. 4
what follows are prints from the photographer’s own shelf: quiet nights he kept from other rooms, mounted here so you can see the kind of light we mean. when this chapbook is truly ours, the corners will hold our nights instead.
iv. write to us p. 5
for bookings, kind words, or living rooms with room for two more chairs, the address is the same one we have always had. letters get read on sunday mornings, at the table, out loud, in order of postmark.
hello@wrenandtheweather.example
or, if you prefer paper: c/o the kitchen-table press, vancouver, b.c.
tell us where you heard us, and what the weather was doing. we keep a ledger of that. so far it is mostly rain.
with care,
wren
p.s. the weather says hello too, in his way. he is re-stringing the guitar as i write this, which for him is practically a speech.