Christopher Paul Stelling is a troubadour in the truest sense. His songs find their roots in the storytelling methods of southern folk music. His meticulous finger plucking guitar playing couples well with his commanding vocal style as he weaves the two around stellar songwriting that encompasses subjects near and dear to early American folk artists.” Christopher Paul Stelling is a singer-songwriter and guitarist currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Stelling was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, and has also resided in Colorado, Washington
“Destitute” by Christopher Paul Stelling from the album ‘Itinerant Arias,’ available now
Itinerant Arias finds Stelling backed by a band, electrified if you will. It is a record inspired by movement and travel. The album cover a photograph taken by Stelling himself depicting an arrangement of found objects on his table. With a little more than a week before returning to the road, he retreated to a friend’s Connecticut cabin out in the woods with some musician friends. They slept there, ate there and didn’t leave for the next eight days, recording the haunting and powerful record.
“We would wake up in the morning, make coffee and record. The idea was just to live together, eat together and make this record. Having been alone and on the road, it was great to make a home with these musicians for those eight days. These songs were minimally demoed, arranged on the spot and recorded together live.
The album begins with the bittersweet ode to battered perseverance in “Destitute. As Stelling explains, “We begin at rock bottom. When all the layers of self pity are pealed away and all we have left to do is remind ourselves that it gets better from here. It’s a song about putting one foot in front of the other, about looking up. A nice place to start.”
Later Stelling addresses the plight of the refugee with the lilting and soulful“Sleep Baby Sleep.” He explains, “I became aware of the Syrian refugee crisis first hand a couple years back when crossing the English channel from Calais to Dover. Seeing the camps, driving right past them, looking at me from behind the fences, desperate to find a home… and me able to pass, with the right passport, the right nationality, the right look made me feel ill. I’ve gotten to know some wonderful displaced Syrians in my travels and they are some of the dearest people I’ve met. This is a song for them.”
The politically charged appropriately raucous “BadGuys” rages righteously against the ones who create turmoil, “Those nightmares creep into your reality,” Stelling says. “You’re reading about them in the papers. Who are these monsters and where do they come from? They’re just terrified little children hell bent on destroying the world, but you and your people got some home-made and there’s a second line coming down the street, everyones faces painted up like skeletons and you join in, because fuck it.”
The record ends with the intimate acknowledgement of life’s unavoidable uncertainty featuring Stelling’s melodic guitar picking backed by strings and a moving vocal chorus on “A Tempest.” “If we go, we’ll go together. To think of life as many voyages that tumble into one. Each new journey informing the next, but there’s always surprises and beautiful distractions along the way. We are on a ship out at sea, unsure if we are on our way back home or leaving for good. Who knows where we are headed? Nobody. So enjoy it.”
“Oh, River” (Live at Echo Mountain) by Christopher Paul Stelling from the album ‘Itinerant Arias,’ available May 5th
Julia Christgau – vox and percussion
Kieran Ledwidge – Violin
Matthew Murphy – Bass
The highly anticipated new album Itinerant Arias by acclaimed singer-songwriter and guitarist Christopher Paul Stelling is releasedtoday. While Stelling has spent the last several years traveling with just his guitar, Itinerant Arias finds the virtuosic finger picker backed by a cadre of friends and musicians, lending a rollicking energy to a record inspired by traveling through and observing an undeniably tumultuous world.
A track by track insight into the songs of Itinerant Arias from Stelling himself , Christopher Paul Stelling arrived on the scene in 2013 with a distinctive sound already formed on his debut record Songs of Praise and Scorn. Over the course of four albums, he has continued to refine that sound to his growing vision of our complex world. With Itinerant Arias he takes a bold and successful step forward as a bandleader and master chronicler of our times.”
Christopher Paul Stelling is a songwriter based in NYC.
Having building a reputation as a formidable and passionate performer, his debutalbum, Songs of Praise andScorn saw its release on 2/21/12 to much critical acclaim. Christopher has played well over 150 shows in 2012, and continued touring through the beginning of 2013. After an upcoming european tour, his followup record False Cities was released May 21st 2013.
Amidst the euphoria of playing in bars, cafes, theaters, festivals, under bridges and in living rooms, were late night conversations with friends, new and old, about the undercurrents of tension and change in their countries and concerns about what was happening back in his own. And so Stelling wrote songs about it all. Darkly beautiful and powerful songs which became the album Itinerant Arias which arrives on May 5th. Months ago, these songs seemed cynical, even paranoid. After all, everything was going to be fine.
Along with the track, there is a video depicting Stelling at home in Asheville, North Carolina preparing to hit the road again. As Stelling explains, “I wanted the video for “Destitute” to convey the bittersweet relationship that I have with leaving. Just when I start to settle in it’s time to go. As hard as it is to find any routine in my home life, touring has become like a nightly reunion. My friends are out there, and I get to go see them, check in, and play them my latest. Destitute is a song about counting your blessings.”
Unlike previous records, “Itinerant Arias” finds Stelling backed by a band, electrified if you will. It is a record inspired by movement and travel. The album cover a photograph taken by Stelling himself depicting an arrangement of found objects on his table. With a little more than a week before returning to the road, he retreated to a friend’s Connecticut cabin out in the woods with some musician friends. They slept there, ate there and didn’t leave for the next eight days, recording the haunting and powerful record.
The Fat Angel Sings 