New York, NY (Top40 Charts) You might not be familiar with Steve Salett, but your favorite artists know him well. A "musician's musician," the New York City singer/songwriter, producer, and musical advisor has led a multifaceted career since the mid-1990s, playing in several bands, performing his own music as The
Poison Tree, and forming music collectives that have been a sustaining creative center for many musicians and beyond. Salett also runs Reservoir Studios in Manhattan and the Saltmines studio complex in DUMBO, Brooklyn, and recently founded his own label, Historical Fiction Records.
But he's never released music under his own name - until now. Released July 13, 2023, First Landing is Steve Salett's long-awaited debut solo album, and one he had to own in every sense of the word.
"I'm excited to be fully connected to the music that I'm making and to basically say, This is who I am, and feel comfortable in that," Salett says. "There is no band name or project name that's going to help people make sense of it or connect to it faster than just having this fully be part of my identity. The only way that it makes sense is that it's me."
A confessional, deeply vulnerable, and brutally honest record, First Landing finds Salett picking apart and piecing together the past decade of his life since the sudden and unexpected loss of his wife, Estella, to breast cancer in 2011. In the years since, Salett's focus has been raising two young children and working with artists behind-the-scenes - but in 2022, he reemerged with the six-track Estella Jane EP, comprised of recordings he had been sitting on since the mid-2010s.
Whereas that EP was an unflinching distillation of intense grief and loss, First Landing looks to the light as Salett finds himself anew - carrying the weight of his past, while discovering love again in his wife, Dara.
"Music was an outlet that made me feel human; my former life felt erased. Much of making this record was about connecting to the people around me, looking at my baggage and my anxieties, and determining the kind of person I wanted to be. It's me, trying to figure out how to be happy and engaged, and just letting whatever I wrote inform me. I feel fortunate in the life I was able to rebuild. I met and married Dara, we combined our families, and we're raising our kids together."
First Landing is intimate yet kaleidoscopic, with Salett often calling in musicians and producers whom he has worked closely with for years.
Tracks like "Heavy Shoulder" and "Simplify Us" showcase his unfiltered and unflinchingly honest songwriting. "Simplify Us," a conversation between Salett and his late wife, is an especially moving, bittersweet take on life and love. "It's about having a relationship with somebody after they die," he reflects. "Relationships don't end with death. We're constantly reassessing what something meant or what they were thinking or the reasons for their decisions, and it's a beautiful thing to be able to continue a loving relationship after they die, because it's not over."
"This song talks about the ways that she tried to make it easier for me, to console me when she knew she was going to die - just trying to make sense of that. Nothing will simplify it; don't ask so many questions, there's a fog on the other side."
There are also tracks that he wrote with his good friend
Thomas Bartlett (St. Vincent, Florence & the Machine, Yoko Ono), like "I For One" and "Spun the Wheel," a cinematic narrative that finds Salett singing from the perspective of an older man who had his chance, and is now at the end of his life and looking back over it. "I loved feeling like I was in this other time and inhabiting a character," Salett notes. "The music and lyrics all feel circular; it all falls together. I think there's something true about creating the character."
Lastly, there's the music he made in a shared studio spot with Josh Kaufman (Bonnie Light Horsemen, Bob Weir), like "Skipper on the Reef" and "J'Amore" - songs that have a lighter warmth and immediacy about them. Pianos glow gently around the cinematic "Skipper on the Reef" as a wayward Salett struggles to figure out where his life is headed.
In "J'Amore," he seems to have found his new home, as he sings a Dylan-esque love song about meeting his wife, Dara. "That's definitely a more joyful song," he smiles. "Here I am, this tangled mess trying to get out of my own way and find love."
Heart-rending at the best of times and gut-wrenching at the worst, First Landing is a no-holds-barred reflection of real life tragedy and its aftermath. Through his own hauntingly beautiful storytelling and richly textured soundscapes, Steve Salett invites listeners into his world.
As Salett's friend and The
Hold Steady frontman
Craig Finn describes, "This is the sound of someone moving forward, while still acknowledging the things they have to carry to get there."
"For better or worse, I had things to share and experiences that were so intense for me," Salett adds. "If I'm an expert in anything, it would be that. It would be grief."
He's been the "musician's musician" and the "songwriter's songwriter." Now making music under his own name, Steve Salett is ready to be the people's songwriter, conveying raw truths directly to whatever audience needs to hear them.
