'GHOSTS' STORIES
OKC experimental harp player Sun Riah shares heartfelt new effort
Memories fade. Their fidelity is only as strong as the scraps of stories they leave behind. Moriah Bailey Stephenson cared deeply for her grandparents up until their deaths and well beyond. The Oklahoma City-based musician and harpist explored that familial and emotional cavern on “Sitting with Sounds and Listening for Ghosts,” an album that’s stacked with hauntingly detailed storytelling and bare-bones balladry.
The results are a stunningly intimate collection of snapshots unfolding Stephenson’s childhood and what home means to her. She spent a great deal of her youth in rural Oklahoma alongside her grandparents.
“I was incredibly close to my grandfather, who I called Papa,” she told The Oklahoman. “He was my best friend for several years after my parents’ divorce. My grandmother and I weren’t super close until after my grandpa passed away in 2005. After he died we bonded over missing him, and we became much closer.”
It’s nothing new for music to fixate on family and the bigness of life but rarely does so much heavy lifting come from one person. Every sound you’ll hear on “Sitting with Sounds” was made by Stephenson. Most likely from her harp.
“Sitting with Sounds and Listening for Ghosts” landed Friday via Keeled Scales. The full-length effort is billed as a “posthumous love letter to her grandparents,” and it’s operating in a similar vein as Sufjan Stevens’ touching “Carrie & Lowell.” Any harp-loving, Joanna Newsom fan also will find plenty to love.
I caught up with Stephenson via email to discuss her new record and its family ties.
Q: I understand a lot of these songs were inspired by your late grandparents. Was writing this a cathartic experience?