Artist: Cristina Vane
Hometown: Turin, Italy
Song: “Prayer For the Blind”
Album: Nowhere Sounds Lovely
Release Date: April 2, 2021
In Their Words: “‘Prayer For the Blind’ is inspired by a friendly couple I met while camping on the border of Nebraska and Iowa. She told me her mother suffered from dementia, but that it couldn’t help but make her laugh when her mother claimed that her husband was cheating on her, going dancing with a woman with two peg legs, and that she was going to wring her neck. The anecdote got me thinking about how we try and find levity in heavy situations, and also about the bond between mothers and daughters and the intergenerational burdens that can be passed along through them. I wanted to find a tone that matched the difficult nature of these questions, and the lonesome modal banjo seemed perfect for that, paired with Nate Leath’s great fiddling. The issues of motherhood and illness are no new phenomenon, so I thought old time sounds fit the theme well — you can’t beat a fiddle and banjo!” — Cristina Vane
Photo credit: Oceana Colgan
Video credit: Jeremy Harris
