Caley Conway’s excellent new EP, Surrounded Middle, begins with the singer/songwriter informing a potential lover that it “looks like you won’t be getting to know me.” And throughout the record’s six tracks, Conway explores this sense of unknowing as she sings of secrets kept and feelings guarded. In the hands of a less accomplished vocalist, such lyrical content could come off as a bit formulaic. Yet Conway’s plaintive voice, along with her understated approach to lyric writing, strip these themes of any unnecessary adornment as it hones in on the emotional truth of reluctant love. Conway may keep her guard up throughout Surrounded Middle, but by the end of the record we really do want to know more about her.
Adding to the appeal of Surrounded Middle is Conway’s guitar playing. Record opener “Silent Snow Secret Snow” begins as a way for Conway to show off her traditional singer-songwriter chops. Yet halfway through the song the track opens up, as Conway begins playing a riff that sounds like it was pulled from a ’90s-era Built to Spill album. It is an unexpected twist, one that makes an in initially insular song into something quite sonically expansive.
This willingness to let the guitar drive the material is repeated on “Cold Hymn,” Surrounded Middle’s stellar second track. Here, Conway creates what sounds like a loving homage to the Deal sisters and their breakthrough act, The Breeders. The guitar-playing on this track is upfront and confident, evidence of Conway’s willingness to use the instrument “to take more of a leadership role” in terms of songwriting for this recording session.
More importantly, as Conway explains, the emphasis on guitar highlights the performer “claiming a little more responsibility for the sound of the music,” particularly in light of the misguided belief that the guitar is a “male” instrument. “I knew,” Conway notes, “that I was striving for independence from male players as much as possible” during the songwriting process for Surrounded Middle. What you hear then is a performer fully finding her voice.
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All these aspects of Surrounded Middle come to a head on “Open Your Mouth,” the record’s standout fifth track. Expressive guitar playing—what Conway calls the repeated playing of a “mantra-like riff”—plays off Conway stretching her voice to its near breaking point as she turns the song’s title into a demand, perhaps both for her partner and for herself. The song, Conway notes, “is more of an indulgence in vocal melody rather than story. I wanted to see if I could take it there vocally.”
Helping Conway achieve such results was engineer Lawton Hall, who recorded Surrounded Middle at The Chair Company recording studio. The equipment at The Chair Company, according to Conway, was “beyond anything I would have imagined,” while Hall’s assistance proved vital to the success of the recording session—particularly when it came to finding the right guitar sounds.
“Lawton really helped me to bring out what I was hearing with my guitar parts,” concludes Conway. “He really helped me dial in those tones.” There is little doubt that Conway’s confidence as a player improved during the recording of Surrounded Middle, and she is excited for the upcoming release of the record, along with the chance to bring these dynamic songs to the Anodyne stage.
Caley Conway plays an EP release show Thursday, April 18, at Anodyne Coffee at 7 p.m. with Gauss and SistaStrings.
