SONAURA’s romantic chemistry radiates from “Long Way ‘Round”

Date: 7/25/2023

EASTHAMPTON — An adage I’ve heard from a couple of musicians is you must live before you can record an album.

Now, diminishing the laborious process of recording music to a simple explanation is unfair to the artists who put in the work to lay their hearts out. Making songs involves a much more complicated process, but there is some truth to that slogan when you consider that, without simply living, there is no inspiration, and without inspiration, there are no valuable stories to tell.

The idea of “living” can mean a lot of different things to people, especially artists, but to me, “living” means listening, having an open mind, forming lifelong relationships, finding new places and escaping a certain comfort zone.

All of these elements of “living” are reflected in SONAURA’s new album “Long Way ‘Round,” a rustic and lambent amalgamation of starry-eyed tunes fit for summer’s dusk and dawn.

The architects behind the project, Laura Buchanan and Grayson Ty, are already Western Massachusetts staples — with Ty operating as a prolific solo artist in the past and Buchanan making music as a member of the valley trio Eavesdrop. “Long Way ‘Round,” however, is their first album recorded together, not only as creative partners, but also as romantic ones.

Linking for a full-length album was not initially in the cards, however. Events kind of happened by circumstance, fate, and, well, by “living.” Truth be told, it is more fun anyway when the stars align rather than developing some contrived alliance.

In an interview with Reminder Publishing, the duo said they knew each other for quite some time, but really started connecting a few months before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Around that time, the duo did not expect to record songs together, but, as their romantic relationship blossomed, so did their creative juices.

“It’s funny because this writing was a product of us becoming a romantic partnership,” Buchanan said. “We didn’t necessarily see it coming, but as our relationship grew, and coming from histories of being musicians, it seemed kind of natural to try [and write songs].”

“Long Way ‘Round” is a fruit salad of songwriting styles decorated with neon-drenched synth-pop (“80 Miles”), arid forays into country (“Fool’s Gold”), benign R&B melodies, acoustic-driven ballads and moonlit slow dances. The mixture makes sense since Buchanan comes from a history of making country tunes while Ty typically ruminates in a more pop-centric atmosphere.

The album illustrates each of their strengths, where at times it seems like Buchanan and Ty are passing a baton back and forth to each other as a way of shining a light on their respective influences.

But what makes the album feel like a cohesive whole is their desire to experiment with the other’s signature sound, a move that never seemed plausible before the two met each other.

“I think in a lot of ways we opened each other’s worlds up to our musical interests,” Ty said. “I knew country on a surface level but didn’t know the depths of how much I could love classic country music and everything that comes with that, the songwriting, the heartfelt blues that people express through country music and the melodies and everything.”

Buchanan, meanwhile, said she was initially skeptical of modern pop sounds until Ty came around.

“When he turned me onto, it opened up a whole new world of things,” said Buchanan. “I think genre wise, we both opened up each other a lot.”

The opening track “Stay True” reflects this linkage and sets the tone for a heartfelt album that reveals an exuberance uncovered from finding the perfect person. Buchanan sings about serendipity with a pastoral twang: “When lonely calls you late at night/You feel the empty space beside/Then good love shows up right on time,” while Ty harmonizes along with her on a chorus about seizing the moment, thereby emphasizing those specific country melodies he came to fall in love with.

The euphoric energy makes sense when you consider that their name as a duo, SONAURA, is a combination of both their own names, and that their romantic partnership has blossomed into their recent marriage.

The duo’s connection is palpable, especially during the interview when they both proclaim that they want to learn how to play the steel guitar in unison or when they answer questions with the same entwined energy as portrayed on “Long Way ‘Round,” which was an album title borne out of their track “Ever After,” and fully reflects the duo’s journey together.

“I think the line long way around really encompasses not only our relationship, but us coming to where we are now in our lives,” Buchanan said. “We’re both really in a place of feeling really grateful for our families and our friends and feeling like we’re both in a really great place right now.”

Not all tracks are full of bliss, though. Certain moments invoke the knottiness of feeling lonely or feeling cheated. Buchanan takes the reigns on the haunting slow-burner, “Hit & Run”— “But nothing seems clearer than seeing you with her tonight/She’s breaking yours, you broke mine/Don’t come crying to me now”— while Ty uses a folksy backdrop to tell a wanderer’s tale in the vein of Lord Huron: “She laid her heart out on the table/Said ‘I’m all in on you’/He gave his word he’d never break it…but he’s been running in the night.”

Songs like these and the shimmering “Trick of the Light” fully round out the album with all angles of love, while other songs like the campfire-tinged “A Dance with the Moon” and the effusive “World on Fire” represent Buchanan and Ty’s affectionate attitudes toward each other as newlyweds. At times, the album feels like the quintessential table for two.

“I think it’s safe to say to when we realized that this was becoming a project and we wanted to put a collection of songs together, it was important to us to explore different genres and not stick to one,” Buchanan said. “I think that made us draw upon very many of our inspirations to make that happen.”

Their inspirations generated an album borne from circumstance, passion and developing a connection when it is least expected. For them, this is a life worth living.

The album is available on Spotify and Apple Music. Readers may also visit their website: https://www.sonauraband.com/about.