Jamming buddies. Music partners. Life partners.
That was the order of things for Little Crow’s Emily Seal and Kas Baker. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say the dark folk duo — set to release their debut EP this Sunday, Nov. 6 — found a little serendipity in songwriting.
With Baker on guitar and Seal on vocals, the two-piece folk project recalls sounds of the now-disbanded Civil Wars, Daughter, and Elle King.
“We met and became friends and Kas was in a rock band at the time and I was doing my solo-songwriter stuff,” Seal reveals to Loose Lips.
“We started jamming because both of us weren’t feeling fulfilled in our other projects. We ended up writing our first song which is our first single and then we were like, ‘Let’s go full force with this.’”
In the past year, the two musicians have stolen away to build the project together, and until recently only released cover songs. With Baker leaving his former band and Seal finding a new outlet through the Little Crow duo, the project seems to have been a kismet coming-together.
“After [my band and I] went our own ways, I was looking to keep doing something in music. That song [Devil in Disguise] came out of it and we were like, ‘Wow, that was great. We could really do something together,’” Baker says.
And “do something together,” they did. In the span of one year, the couple wrote and recorded an EP, toured around England, and got engaged.
“Our styles meshed really well together. Kas got out of his comfort zone a bit with writing, and then he got me out of my comfort zone with trying different melodies and being a bit more ballsy,” Seal divulges.
“I feel like when we wrote this, it hasn’t been forced at all. It all just kind of happened naturally, and often we sit down and write and don’t even know what the song is really about until we’re finished writing it.”
So, with an EP so mired in songs that seem to touch on heartbreak and catharsis, does it ever get messy for the couple? Not so, they attest.
“We’re both very open with each other and have been since day-one, even before we were in a relationship,” Seal says.
“I feel like I know all about his past relationships and he knows about mine so it doesn’t ever stop us from writing at all. Music is music, and our relationship is separate.”
Baker echoes the sentiment, saying everything in their musical career is simply a reflection of truth and relatability.
“We talk a lot about love and loss and I think that it’s something everyone goes through. Those feelings can kind of stay with you, no matter how far you are into your life; those experiences affect you for a really long time. That seemed to be the common theme for this EP,” he says empathetically.
The four-track EP, recorded by Paul Beochler at Fader Master Studios, includes their debut single “Devil in Disguise.”
Little Crow performs their EP Release Party at Guilt & Co. on Sunday, Nov. 6. Doors at 8 p.m.