Beneath the sawdust and coffee grinds, barista Lorissa Scriven and luthier Zachary Lefebvre are ‘Wildwood Soul,’ the profoundly talented duo whose musical bond spans the continent. Amid a seamless blending of cello, guitar, piano and rich woody harmonies, they have been touring and crafting music together since 2012. Their music feels nostalgic and wistful, like a long barefoot walk in the forest.
Zach grew up at the end of a road outside Desbarats Ontario, one of five children. It was a childhood spent roving, creating, learning musical craft, sleeping underneath piano’s; in this family music was like breath. Lorissa was hewn in the yawn of the Peace River Valley in Northern British Columbia, a free spirit at heart with a deep love of music and wild places.
Though they grew up 2000 miles apart, they were both old souls — roamers of the forest. Lorissa’s friends were the aspens and the spruce and the wild roses, Zach’s, the pines, maples and ferns. While Lorissa was losing herself in even the smallest acts of creation, like arranging a vase of flowers, or seeking mystical discarded objects in the woods, Zach was searching out forgotten apple trees around his family property and nursing them back to health.
The two musicians were drawn together in 2011. And it was after-hours in a Sault Ste Marie cafe, in deepest Ontario where long evening sessions were spent unfurling — coaxing the music out of the cracks of the past. Deep healing occurred. Through the graceful transcendence of music, a kind of soul friendship was seeded, and an abiding musical bond formed between the two.
In 2013, after playing a sold out release show in Lorissa’s home town, ‘Wildwood Soul’ crammed into a van full of gear and, surviving on almond butter and fruit, embarked on a huge cross country tour. ‘The Wanderlust Tour’ saw them rambling, playing everything from lakeside pubs, cafe’s and music festivals to dusky back porch gigs with choirs of crickets. They survived winter touring in snowstorms, and piece by piece, at the easy pace that real, rich music takes to form, began putting an album together.
‘The January moon’ will be released in June 2019, and is the culmination of eight years of musical experiencing, soul searching and bonding. It is the soulful bounty of two humans humbly rooted in nature and music, and dedicated to the creation of beauty.
