Tag: Luke Jackson

A Decade Later — Chris DuPont Celebrates 10th Anniversary of “Outlier” Album With Willis Sound Show

Chris DuPont. Photo – Misty Lyn Bergeron

After more than a decade of releasing music, Chris DuPont wants to revisit one of his earliest albums.

The Ypsilanti, Michigan singer-songwriter is paying tribute to his second album, Outlier, for its 10th anniversary with a show at Willis Sound.

“For many Ann Arbor listeners, Outlier was an introduction to my songwriting,” said DuPont, who’s performing songs from the indie-folk album with a full band on July 10.

“The longer I make music, the more important it feels to pause and celebrate milestones and to look at how I’ve changed and grown since then. The season of creating and releasing that album holds a great deal of memory, and I want to honor it before I dive fully into my next body of work.”

In 2015, he penned Outlier’s 10 tracks after confronting personal challenges related to his mental health and faith.

“In terms of what it means to me now, I think Outlier contains the opening statements of a discussion I’m still having with myself and the world around me,” DuPont said. “It’s the writings of a young man who’s coming to terms with his own mental health challenges, but still in the earliest stages of owning his problems and being good to those around them.”

Looking back, DuPont sees the emotional and spiritual growth that’s come from that creative experience.

“It’s the serpentine spiritual musings of someone who is enamored with the faith tradition he came from, yet deeply saddened and enraged by the abuses it inflicts,” he said. “These songs took some big swings to talk about relatively tough things, but looking back I think I may have pulled my punches in ways I wouldn’t now.”

I recently did an email interview with DuPont about Outlier ahead of his celebratory show.

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Perfectly Imperfect – Rin Tarsy Celebrates Life’s Contradictions on ‘Paradox’

Rin Tarsy 1
Rin Tarsy embarks on an emotional and spiritual quest of self-discovery on “Paradox.” Photo – Justin Snavely

For Rin Tarsy, life is filled with beautiful contradictions and imperfections.

The Grand Rapids folk singer-songwriter and guitarist embraces authenticity, yet re-examines her purpose on the aptly titled album, Paradox.

“For a while, people would ask, ‘What’s the theme of Paradox?’ And for a while, I didn’t know. Finally, it dawned on me one time when I was listening through all the tracks – it’s about self-trust and self-discovery,” said Tarsy, who grew up in Portland and started singing in church.

“I hope all these songs make sense together, and I really like them, but I wasn’t sure if they did. It’s comforting and scary at the same time. Are these thoughts ever gonna go away? Am I always gonna be questioning everything? Maybe I will.”

Tarsy’s lingering questions slowly spark an emotional and spiritual quest of self-discovery on Paradox that spans several years. Each poetic track celebrates intuition and explores emotion.

“The first songs I wrote for this album – ‘Stay,’ ‘Dear Heart’ and ‘Suitcase’ – were in the summer of 2016 after I got back from Africa. It was the first time I had examined who I was when I took away all of the pursuits that I had and the things I had wanted to go after,” said Tarsy, who visited Tanzania, Zambia and Namibia.

“At the time, I had asked myself, ‘Who am I if those things don’t go exactly the way I want? Or if my idealisms of what they could be don’t match up with the reality of what they actually are?’”

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Ebb and Flow – Chris DuPont Surges through Personal Upheaval on ‘Floodplains’

Chris DuPont intricately weaves a series of reflective, tender vignettes into a cathartic, cohesive whole on his exploratory new album. Artwork – Emilee Petersmark

Chris DuPont doesn’t envision Floodplains as a stand-alone musical chapter.

The Ypsilanti indie folk singer-songwriter intricately weaves a series of reflective, tender vignettes into a cathartic, cohesive whole on his exploratory new album. Filled with ethereal soundscapes, hypnotic guitars and mesmerizing vocals, Floodplains surges through the vast peaks and valleys of the soul to unify past and present experiences into a hopeful future.

“As a project that’s loaded with very difficult emotional content, I just had to sit by myself and grind. It was a very frustrating, solitary experience, and I had to really develop my work ethic and show up. It’s really tough to show up literally in your bedroom when you have a whole list of things that you have to get knocked out,” DuPont said.

“I learned the value of solitude and just sitting with your feelings and allowing them to move through you without making a knee-jerk reaction about what they mean. That’s been a big growth point for me. Working on this record really forced me to sit with difficult feelings and hear them tossed back in my ears over and over again. But as valuable as solitude is, I also learned the importance of asking for help.”

For Floodplains, DuPont sought help from a talented team of collaborators, including Frances Luke Accord’s Nick Gunty (piano vocals), Billy Harrington (drums, orchestral percussion), Johannes Stauffer (piano), Luke Jackson (bass), Christina Furtado (cello), Lea Kirstein (violin, viola), Rin Tarsy (vocals) and Olivia Dear (vocals).

Together, they created and navigated the majestic Floodplains throughout apartments, houses and recording studios in Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids. The album slowly ebbed and flowed over two years alongside a period of personal upheaval and change for DuPont.

“Working with producer Nick Gunty was a fabulous experience. It was a big deal working with a producer, letting them in on your process and giving them creative push and pull as you’re letting go. That was a very important part of the process,” DuPont said.

“And toward the end wrapping it all up and getting the mastering done, I pulled in my dear friend Chris Norman, who’s an electronica producer out of Texas. I was running out of time and needed someone to master the record, and I knew he would love to do it.”

As an exquisite finished product, Floodplains rises and swells with intense emotion across 12 thoughtful, vivid tracks that steer listeners along a highly personal, poignant odyssey. It’s the ideal sonic outlet for releasing deeply buried troubles while seeking solace and starting anew in an uncertain world.

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Higher Ground – Chris DuPont Finds Strong Sense of Renewal on ‘Retrieve’

Chris DuPont ascends to heavenly heights on his latest single, “Retrieve.” Artwork – Emilee Petersmark

For Chris DuPont, a fresh start begins with finding higher ground.

The Ypsilanti indie folk singer-songwriter ascends to heavenly heights on his latest hopeful, breathtaking single, “Retrieve,” now available on all streaming platforms.

“It’s a song about trying to make someone feel seen and believed when they’ve shared a really difficult story with you. It’s really meant to be sort of a power anthem, and on a personal level, I’m just so grateful that it’s as exciting to listeners as it is to me,” DuPont said.

“And on a professional level with this being an unprecedented time putting out an album in the middle of a pandemic with no real hope of touring on it, I decided this just needed to be the first thing people hear. Listeners who have been with me for a while will have heard it already, and I wanted this to be the first impression of anyone coming into my music cold.”

To the contrary, listeners will receive a warm welcome while absorbing the emotional authenticity flowing through “Retrieve,” which blends glistening, frenzied acoustic strums and spirited cello into a soaring symphony of sparkling piano, uplifting bass and cozy drums.

DuPont intimately reflects, “There’s a fullness beyond fatigue/No, nothing is clean if you choose to live/I didn’t anticipate the ways I’d be undone/But on the other side of a breakdown/Is a silver lining for you darlin’/When everything that died in you is fertile in your garden.”

“I can’t get away from the theme of death and rebirth and uprooting and re-rooting in my music, and I think one reason I wanted to go with a garden image is because life and recovery are really dirty and messy. And to be a thriving human being doesn’t mean to do everything cleanly, everything perfectly,” said DuPont, who’s included haunting single artwork by The Crane Wives’ Emilee Petersmark.

“This is a very hard concept for me as someone who grew up in a very black and white thinking religious paradigm where there’s this idea of striving to be pure or perfect. I wanted to embrace the dirt with this whole body of work and especially that song.”

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