Squirrel Flower

If a throughline exists in the decade of Squirrel Flower's repertoire, it's a projection of time and place. A 'Squirrel Flower song' is a snapshot of Chicago-based songwriter Ella Williams' feelings, extrapolated into a character, a train of thought, or a (super)natural phenomenon. Of her fourth studio album on Polyvinyl Records (sixth full-length), 'Say A Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going', Williams describes each song as a living archive of a moment or place, given space outside the forceful progression of time. Spanning 2024 and 2025, 'Say A Prayer' maps the locations and characters Williams encountered across vast American biomes: "Canyons of New Mexico / Factories of Indiana / Bunkers of California / Harbors of New England calling / She ends up in borderlands / She ends up in familiar places." Williams chronicles a solo traveller, untethered yet bolstered by a vast network of friends and companions. In many ways, 'Say a Prayer' is about itself — the process of its creation on the road. More than a travelogue, it's a bittersweet testament to exploration and self-possession, longing and musing. Vividly personal, it's like abandoned scrapbooks filled with ephemera, harvested from the dusty freeway by some highway woman, tenuously protected from a desert monsoon. Past experiences lovingly chronicled, the future remains open for Williams as she hopes for a sign to know when to get going and when to stay still.