Silver Birch — Oblivion

Oblivion by Silver Birch is a debut album, but it's also a condensate, born out of the humming summ of decades of life and music. Over the years guitarist, songwriter and producer Patrick Lerjen had helped create many musical projects like Electric Blanket, Porok Karpo, Katzenheim and Three Base Hit. On his way, he collected as many favorites: a love for sparse arrangements and harmonies with a twist, a distinct, gnarly warm guitar style, an affection for lush analog 70' synths & string-machines and slowest drumbeats. So when, for the first time, Lerjen set out to find his own voice as a singer, he melded the cornerstones of his musical identity into a world of soothing song-lines that evoke names like Ben Howard, J. Tillman or Bon Iver.

In his singing, Lerjen is not afraid to show his vulnerability, and at the same time, unmistakably claims his right to be heard. We meet an old soul, that strives to remain curious and ready to fall in love with the world over and over again.
Lerjen contemplates about the hardships we face and our shortcomings as humans. But there’s always a grain of hope to be found in his songs that carries you.

ABOUT THE ALBUM TITLE

The albums title Oblivion refers to, how parts of your life seem to slip away from you. While this loss is being mourned, it is also been seen as a positive force, that, instead of dwelling in the past, let's you move on and find happiness now. It's this come together of distant memories and hopeful looking in the future that sets the emotional core of «Oblivion».

INFLUENCES

Growing up, Patrick Lerjen was strongly influenced by the female perspective of his early bubble of cousins, 7 girls and him as the only boy. In that spirit, as a singer, he was mainly moved and inspired by female artists like Leslie Feist, Joan As Police Woman, Julia Jacklin, Sophie Hunger, Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker an last but not least Lerjen's wife and longtime bandmate Helena Danis of Electric Blanket.

As a guitarist, Lerjen’s biggest influences were Bill Frisell and John Abercrombie (he originally studied Jazz-guitar), but he then was drawn to the more folksy guitar stiles of Feist, Madison Cunningham and Jose Gonzales.