Our obsession with Michellar seems to grow with every listen. We recently featured two of her incredible tracks, and were digging through her archive to retrieve California Fields, which was released in August 2024. Naturally, we wanted to share our experience listening to the six-minute opus!
Opening with a glistening frequency and a stunning Eagles-esque guitar performance with luscious strings accompaniment, Michellar opens California Fields with an immersive nature and poetic grace as she sings, “California fields my home, the wide and grassy golden hills, when the wind blows West, I will leave to rest my soul…”
As much as there is a dark Americana feel to the song, her vocal intonation reminds us of Leonard Cohen – brooding, but with a delicate timbre. The lyricism expresses a deep connection to California’s natural beauty, referencing golden hills, lakes, and towering trees which symbolize home and safety for Michelle Bond.
On a more zeitgeist level, the lyrics also reference the destruction caused by the wildfires, which as we know, have turned dreams and landscapes to ash, leaving an uncertain future. The hook “You’ll never know…” emphasizes the unpredictability of nature, but the song ends with an optimistic edge manifesting renewal and regrowth.
This is a common theme with Michellar‘s artistry – she is a conscious artist with a naturalist and holistic approach to song creation. We deeply appreciate her intentional essence and the poetic prowess that she shares to uplift us whilst allowing for us to tap into a more introspective frequency.
She confesses, “At the time I wrote this song , there were a lot of devastating fires in Northern California that were desimmating a lot of homes up there. Watching the events and seeing the aftermath of those fires affected my outlook on the future of California.”
Her body of work is cohesive, and we would love to experience Michellar’s music in a live setting. Fitting in perfectly with our Eagles reference earlier, we do in fact learn from the artist herself that the song was inspired by Hotel California, designed as “a significant reminder of the state’s environmental struggles.”
It was recorded at the Women’s Audio Mission studio in San Francisco, and also sets the stage for Michellar‘s upcoming Latin-inspired EP! We have added California Fields to our New Music Spotlight playlist, and our TIMELESS playlist, whilst we continue to stream the transcendental and psychedelic, Dreaming, and the conscious and enlightening, LOVE EARTH!