Between coronavirus lockdowns and outrage at police violence and racism reaching a fever pitch, 2020 presented a conundrum for artists and bands with albums completed but yet to be released. Should they put the record out anyway — because who knows how and when all this might end, or whether the work will still seem relevant once things get back to something like normal? Or should they wait it out, banking on better days ahead?
The singer-songwriter born Tristen Gaspadarek, but known to most as just Tristen — a star student in the Nashville rock scene’s gifted class of 2009, alongside fellow then-newcomers Those Darlins and Caitlin Rose — decided to hold her latest work back for just a bit. Tristen and her husband, bandmate and co-producer Buddy Hughen, wrapped her fourth LP Aquatic Flowers last summer. For the two, making a decision on releasing the album all came down to how Election Day played out.
“In a world continuing to self-destruct, my little feelings didn’t feel that important at that time,” says Tristen, filling me in on the genesis of Aquatic Flowers over afternoon coffee. The 37-year-old Chicago-area native’s earnest, observant songs have always leaned into feelings. A theme more specific to the latest batch, she explains, is “the whole life cycle — [how] some things must die to let others live.”
Two-and-a-half years ago, Tristen and Hughen became parents to a son, a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy named Julian. (“He got the recessive gene, for sure,” she says of his features — Mom and Dad both have brown hair and brown eyes.) The pair met years earlier when Hughen was co-fronting Nashville-via-Boston power-pop phenoms Eureka Gold with Jordan Lehning, who’d go on to lead the equally rocking Non-Commissioned Officers. “I’d just moved to town,” Tristen recalls. “I thought their band was really good, and [Buddy was] also very handsome. Buddy and I first went out a week later, and spent every day together since.”
They’ve been bandmates for nearly as long. Hughen moonlit on guitar for Tristen’s 2011 debut Charlatans at the Garden Gate, then joined as full-time axman when she took the record on tour. They married the next year and spent the rest of the decade on the write-record-tour treadmill. Between 2013’s C A V E S and Sneaker Waves in 2017, Gaspadarek landed a gig as a touring member of Jenny Lewis’ backing band — a favor the longtime Rilo Kiley frontwoman and indie-pop queen returned with a cameo on the Sneaker Waves track “Glass Jar.” (Lewis is also one of many guests set to appear during the Tristen the Night Away livestream set for June 11.)
Cover art: Tristen, 'Aquatic Flowers'
Tristen’s first three LPs proved her aptitude for multilayered songcraft, as she and her ever-evolving band toggled gracefully between guitar and synth soundscapes. The home-recorded Aquatic Flowers builds on these traits, with understated production but crystal-clear lyricism. “Complex,” the album’s opening song (and interestingly, the last tune written for it) fuses three equally catchy hooks as it plays on its title’s dual meanings — the noun meaning a personal hangup, and the adjective, a synonym for something difficult. “Athena,” the rollicking centerpiece of the 11-song set, honors the Greek goddess of wisdom and war while addressing the ways that contemporary society pressures women to keep quiet: “When you break the silence / Does it feel like violence?”
But Aquatic Flowers’ MVP isn’t a musician — yet. Tristen and Hughen’s embrace of parenthood yielded the record’s tear-jerking, show-stopping standout, titled, naturally, “Julian.” The melody grew from a lullaby Tristen used to serenade her then-infant as she cradled him in her arms. (“He loved it,” she remembers, beaming.) The song captures a mother’s ongoing flood of emotions — and absence of sleep — as she guides her child through his early years. “In a time before you, I had so many plans,” she sings wistfully on the track. “Now none of that matters / You can tell me where to go, my baby boy.”
“I spent a solid 16 years traveling around, doing whatever I wanted,” Tristen says. “Jaded, melancholy — that’s just my personality, and it comes out in my songs. I don’t want to project negativity — I just notice problems and fixate on them. But becoming a mom broke me wide open, made me care about something else. Children bring you into the moment. And right now, my son is in the moment. … [He said,] ‘That siren is crying.’ He hears everything. He’s the man.”
