A total eclipse is a rare phenomenon when dark and light converge. Strangers lift their faces toward the perfect circle in the sky, and, for a moment, the world around us quiets and all divides erase. It's a reckoning similar to the one Americans now face: a reminder that, however different we are, we share the same shadows and the same fragile earth. The traveling musician knows this well. They absorb the people, experiences, struggles and successes they meet along the way like devoted historians.
As The Montvales, Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson make their way from city to city, committed to capturing the political, social, and economic tensions shaping the country's landscape at any given time. When the Cincinnati-based folk duo embarked on their tour from Pittsburgh to Texas in the spring of 2024, their route inadvertently matched part of the path of totality for a total solar eclipse across North America. It was surreal: they met people from all over the world in each rural gas station, everyone buzzing in anticipation. Traffic was intense. Suddenly every hotel room cost twice as much as usual. An eclipse is said to bring dark, shadowy material to the surface, often confronting us with difficult truths, and Buice and Rochelson witnessed these effects unfold around them.
In the spring of 2024, student demonstrations across the country protested the genocide in Gaza at the same universities where students in the '60s had protested the Vietnam war, under the same series of Aries and Libra eclipses they were currently experiencing. Many Americans suddenly grappled with a deeper understanding of the suffering their tax dollars were funding, amidst a skyrocketing cost of living. Neither of the front runners in the impending presidential election seemed to have much to say about it. American democracy felt more and more tenuous, and the threat of a second Trump term hung heavily in the air.
On a personal level, the band also happened to be undergoing a rather dramatic streak of bad luck. Rochelson, while trying to clear her head on a walk along the Galveston Bay, wrote the album's striking opening track "World of Trouble." "We were about to play the Old Quarter and I thought about Townes and Guy Clark and what it meant to be in this role of traveling stranger and cultural witness during such catastrophic times," Rochelson says.
Place and fate resonate throughout Path of Totality. Raised in the staunchly conservative state of Tennessee, Buice and Rochelson were outliers, destined to meet before they were even born. Their parents were family friends and former co-workers who nurtured their creative children and taught them the importance of empathy and community. Home to the Highlander Center, a historic social justice organizing space, and a diverse and busy Market Square in Knoxville, their East Tennessee community was a hotbed for political movements and for the arts. The duo took to Market Square in middle school to kick off their busking career, performing alongside all sorts of entertainers in the robust chaos of the commons.
Their politically-driven songwriting is heavily informed by their upbringing in the South, witnessing the tenacity of people organizing for liberation under violent and tumultuous conditions. The Highlander Center was set on fire and faced several bomb threats, there was a politically-motivated shooting at their Unitarian Universalist Church, and the Planned Parenthood where Rochelson worked was burned down. Reminiscing on the lyrics to John Prine's "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore," Buice explains that politically driven folk music gave her a sense of agency in dark times, and she's always wanted to be part of that musical lineage.
The Montvales recorded Heartbreak Summer Camp, their first album, with just the two of them in a living room. "That's how we knew how to play the songs and we didn't have any money and so that's how we did it," Rochelson says. The stripped-down, DIY folksongs span their young adulthood, beginning in their teens and taking them through their mid 20s. "I'm really glad that we have that record as a document of that time."
Seeking a more polished sound, the duo recorded their next album Born Strangers at Sean Sullivan's Tractor Shed Studio in Goodlettsville, TN, and sought out Mike Eli LoPinto (guitarist for Chris Stapleton and Wyatt Flores, producer of Emily Nenni's On The Ranch) to produce it. LoPinto brought in a band of players to help translate the duo's songs into a much broader, collaborative sound. The Montvales brought LoPinto back for Path of Totality, this time recorded at Jesse Noah Wilson's Rancho Deluxe, a cozy home studio complete with cats, dogs, and horses galloping just outside. The flexibility allowed them to stray from their traditional folk duo set up, while also listening to Hurray for the Riff Raff and James McMurtry for inspiration.
There's no halfway in, they sing in album standout "The Wicked." Path of Totality does not shy away from the weight of political strife and catastrophe, opting instead to boldly confront it. The Montvales ask us not only how we will endure despite our differences, but how we will find each other again. Their songs are descriptive and textured. The characters are vivid. Their stories are crucial.
