Margo Cilker is a woman who drinks deeply of life, and her debut record, Pohorylle, is brimming with it. For the last seven years, the Eastern Oregon songwriter, who NPR calls one of “11 Oregon Artists to Watch in 2021,” has split her time between the road and various outposts across the world, from Oregon, USA to the Basque Country of Spain, forging a path that is at once deeply rooted and ever-changing.
The Louisana-inspired banger, ‘Tehachapi‘ spins a punchy homage to the power that certain places can hold over a person. The song finds her pining and working as she explores her self-worth through labor.
Her attention seems reserved in equal parts for an unnamed romantic interest as it is for the legend of Tehachapi itself, a small town in the Southern California mountains that found its way into Cilker’s story by way of Little Feat’s ‘Willin’’.
Pohorylle (releasing 14 January 2022), which carries gentle nods to Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt, and Gillian Welch, shines under the instincts of producer Sera Cahoone, whom Cilker first came across in 2019 while planning her first full-length.
“I was trying to pin down what kind of sound I wanted and stumbled across a video of Sera and just loved how she performed. I then listened to her last studio record and thought, that’s the sound,” Cilker says. “I found out Sera had produced that record herself with John Askew. My friend put me in touch with her and she liked my demos enough to produce the album. It felt very auspicious—It was truly just a gut feeling.”
Cahoone quickly got to work assembling a first-rate band: Jenny Conlee (The Decemberists) on keys, Jason Kardong (Sera Cahoone, Son Volt) on pedal steel,Rebecca Young (Lindsey Fuller, Jesse Sykes) on bass, Mirabai Peart (Joanna Newsom) on strings, Kelly Pratt (Beirut) on horns, and the album’s engineer John Morgan Askew (Neko Case, Laura Gibson) on an array of other instruments.
The record also prominently features effortless harmonies from Sarah Cilker, Margo Cilker’s sister and frequent touring partner.