Ramblin’ Woman
In May 2014, Greenfield native Kristen Ford packed up her stuff, sold whatever wouldn’t fit in her van, parked her fiancée in the seat next to her, and set off on what she refers to as “the never-ending tour.” After two years on the road, playing more than 300 shows in 45 states and four countries, Ford, now 29, eventually settled in Nashville.
At this point, she has seen a lot of this beautiful home we call Earth, so the creative fruits of all those hours spent daydreaming on the interstate might seem surprising. Her newest EP, Rend & Render, is a concept album that imagines the end of the world.
Through the eight songs on Rend & Render, Ford’s lyrics play out a story of the fall of technology, the rise of violence without consequence, and the individual’s need to survive and protect loved ones with few places to hide. In an increasingly xenophobic era, marked by crucial but troubled discussion of terrorism, immigration, and police brutality, this narrative seems a lot less Walking Dead than it used to, and a lot more CNN.
The idea, Ford explains, grew out of a conversation with a friend who expressed some anxiety about his son and daughter growing up in a world where they may not have the same rights, or make the same money, as their parents. So Ford wrote new songs and re-worked some old ones to fit a storyline that plays out mid-apocalypse. “It’s about the world as we know it falling away,” she says, “and what could take its place.
“I was going for a sense of creativity and imagination,” she adds, “I didn’t want to come off as an angry lesbian with a guitar. I thought: who are the protagonists? There’s a story here.”
That comes through, starting in the opening minutes of the first song, “Flames,” in which the narrator “woke up on the other side of history this morning/ Our cities slashed and faded in a giant plume of smoke.” The social fallout is immediate: our hero(ine) is jumped by a stranger, and by the time we’re four minutes into Rend & Render, they “waited for a rescuer but my hero never came,” so “I killed a man — I just wish that I knew his name.”
It gets more intense from there, but it’s a testament to Ford’s storytelling that I feel tempted to stop short of dishing out spoilers. Suffice it to say: in a world where the grocery aisles are stripped naked, the lights are out, everyone has a gun, and there’s no one there to hold your hand, we get as much of a window into Ford’s solo troubadour psyche as we do into her newest album’s characters.
That Ford continues to play her appealing blend of folk, blues, country and rock as a one-woman band is even more impressive. Thanks to her electronic foot pedal — which snags, captures, and layers looping vocals and guitar riffs — her live shows sounds bigger, brasher, and more impressive than many would expect from a solo performer.
“I think that any bands that are going to last in a meaningful way are touring bands,” she says. “You can spend a lot of time rehearsing, and it’s not half as brutal as when you fall on your face in front of a crowd the first few times. Keeping in the moment, and connecting with people, is a bit of an addiction for me.”
Kristen Ford plays McNeill’s Brewery in downtown Brattleboro Saturday, July 23 at 9 p.m. Rend & Render and other releases are available through Spotify, the iTunes Store, Soundcloud, and more via kristenfordmusic.com.
