Local singer-songwriter Gardienne releases debut EP ‘Walking Trees’

Alyssa DeGraff has been waiting a very long time for this moment.

Well, not this exact moment specifically, but close enough. Last week, DeGraff released her debut EP, Walking Trees, under the moniker Gardienne. Over coffee at the Westport Café, the 27-year-old San Diego transplant is all smiles as she discusses the EP and the bumps along the road.

“In 2007, when I was 21, I had a vocal-cord injury from singing, and actually went through multiple surgeries. I couldn’t talk for months. I couldn’t sing for about three years,” DeGraff says. “It was this super, super grinding trial in my life when at the core of all of that, I was still convinced that I was supposed to do music.”

DeGraff grew up surrounded by music, singing in church choirs and writing music. At first, she says, her songwriting – like anyone starting out – was fairly rudimentary. She turned to the usual themes for her lyrics: “Boys, mostly,” she says with a laugh.

Fast-forward a decade or so, and boys are still a favorite topic for DeGraff – though the songwriting has matured, she says, because she’s been cut a little deeper by love since her early days. The lead single off Walking Trees addresses the discovery of a third party in a two-person relationship: Oh no, there’s someone else in the garden, DeGraff cries in the chorus. Why can’t I see you? Why do my eyes see men like walking trees?

“For me, that song, ‘The Garden,’ was written from a standpoint of processing feelings of betrayal in a relationship,” DeGraff says. “This metaphorical space that we had created – someone else was brought into that.”

For DeGraff, music is the answer to recovering from the things that boys do – and, really, all the other unexpected mountains that she encounters.

“Everything for me comes from a place that’s deeply personal, deeply intense. I would go through a painful experience and then write music about it, and that was my way of being OK,” she says. “For me, the album is about healing.”

Walking Trees may bring the anticipated catharsis for DeGraff, but for the listener, it’s not as dark as all that. Rather, the album’s five songs feel sweet – a little fairy-dusted pop that falls on the ears quite easily. Despite the dramatic crescendos in “Surrender,” DeGraff is certainly upbeat about self-sacrifice. Even the mournful piano-driven ballad “Storm” is buoyed by tender violins, and album closer “Between Sleep & Awake (Peter Pan Song)” is a softhearted lullaby. On the whole, Walking Trees is a solid first effort from an artist with potential. 

“Everyone in my life was making up excuses for other things I should do,” DeGraff says, referring to her early vocal trauma. “But in my core, I knew that I was supposed to sing and do music. It was hard to tell people that that was my dream, because it was something that I cherished so deeply. It all just feels like a gift, honestly – like a gift given to me, that I get to do this.”

http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3995606808/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/You can purchase Walking Trees on iTunes and stream on Bandcamp.