Interview by John Silva
“Some of the material was pre-existing and then some of it was materialized in response to the passing of my dad, but it was all synthesized together as part of my grieving process,” says Anika Pyle, on her upcoming solo record, Wild River. Known for her work with bands like Chumped and Katie Ellen, Pyle’s solo debut is an intimate portrait of her relationship with her father, and of the grieving she went through after his sudden passing in fall of 2019.
While putting the record together, Pyle came across some recordings of her late grandmother, from right before she died. With the death of loved ones being a prominent theme on Wild River, it seemed fitting to include the recordings on the album.
“I was hearing them for the first time when I was mixing the record, and it was one of those moments that gives you chills,” Pyle says. “I wanted to include them because so much of the record is about intergenerational lessons, whether that’s intergenerational trauma that we inherit from the trauma of our parents and grandparents, but also, this kind of intergenerational wisdom.”
The last piece of wisdom Pyle’s grandmother imparted to her was “start with joy.” This becomes a reoccurring theme on Wild River, in which Pyle finds joy in the simple-yet-magnificent beauty of life.
“The record is pretty heavily nature themed,” she says. “And the natural world and these tiny moments of joy, the smile from the stranger on the bus, or the butterfly, the great migration of the monarch, or the still country creek outside. We can’t control the future and we can’t reclaim the past. We’re not the past, and we’re not the future, all we have is moments, and I think the greatest joy that we have in life are these little moments of beauty.”
Wild River puts Pyle’s lyrical prowess on full display, blending beautifully written songs with thoughtful poetry. She weaves these two art forms together seamlessly.
“I really wanted to find a way to bridge those two mediums,” she says. “Because what I do the most is write songs and write poems, but they kind of operate in this separate world. Even though, what is a poem but a song without music, and what is a lyric but a poem?”
In addition to a vinyl pressing of the record, Pyle is also publishing a book of poetry and lyrics from Wild River, along with original artwork.
Today, over a year after her father’s death, Pyle keeps a photo from a calendar she found while cleaning out his house. She framed it and says “good morning, dad” to it every morning. Through routines like this and through the memories she shared with her father, even the little moments like getting key lime pie with him on the way to the airport, Pyle is able to keep a piece of her dad with her forever.
“The people that we love, when we lose them, we don’t lose them completely, because the things we learned from them and the moments that we shared, we always have,” Pyle says. “Working through this process of trying to hold onto things, it’s like being in the middle of a wild river. You’re trying so desperately to hold on to something that you can’t control, so sometimes you just have to allow yourself to let go.”
Listen to Wild River below, and follow Anika Pyle on Twitter.
Images courtesy of Anika Pyle. Featured image credit: Jess Flynn.
