When Charlie Treat released his bluegrass album Into the Wild Mystic Mountain in 2022, he says he had told himself he was going to “make the folkiest thing I can make, and then I’m going to make the least folky thing I can do.” His fourth album Dawn Is Breaking, released on March 20, manages a pendulum swing in the opposite direction, while retaining the sonic and lyrical elements that characterize Treat’s work. With a little help from his friends, Treat has assembled a collection of songs that come together for a unique, unified listening experience.
When working on the album, he told producer Anthony da Costa he didn’t want to use any wooden instruments. “He fought me on that a little bit,” says Treat. “There’s a little bit of acoustic guitar, a little bit of fiddle,” but he also incorporated synthesizers, keys, and percussion to produce a sound da Costa calls “Neil Diamond in Outer Space.”
Treat, who grew up on a tree farm in Connecticut with a long family history, went to school in Boston then stayed for several years, enjoying the folk and bluegrass scene there before moving to Nashville in 2014.
“I love it here,” he said. When he goes back home and people say, “It’s so competitive down there, right?” he tells them, “No, actually we love and support each other, jam together, and write together, and go to each other shows. In Nashville, it’s all community.” This record bears the benefit of the unique East Nashville cross-pollination, producing a rich vein of music now.
In addition to da Costa, who also plays and provides vocals on the album, Treat is backed by Ross McReynolds on drums and percussion and Will Honaker on bass and clav. He notes that after seeing them playing as a three-piece band at Americana Fest three years ago, he decided he wanted to make a record with them. That encounter led to years of familiarity and friendship.
“They got a studio together, and it was like getting the band, the engineer, the producer, and the studio in one shot. They were the right guys for the gig. Funk and soul and pop are their bread and butter,” he noted. They also brought in Cal Knowles and Jesse Wilson on bass and Oliver Bates Craven on vocals and violin.
As they were finishing work on the album, Treat says, “within days, Anthony was bringing in singers, and he had a different singer in mind for each song. It turned into a long list of mostly women. They’re not only friends, but people I look up to for their art and songwriting.” The list includes Sierra Ferrell, who sings on the opening track “Anybody but You” and joins Lindsay Lou on “Loving Demon.” Rachel Davis, Lydia Luce, Jess Nolan, and Maya de Vitry also provide vocals across the album.
Listeners paying close attention to the lyrics can’t miss the poetic elements that run through the songs, all originals by Treat. He says he not only writes poetry, but also reads every day. “I was an English major,” he says, “so literature is definitely a part of my life. Honestly, it seems like a necessary gymnasium for a songwriter. If there’s no input, how are you going to have output?” And while he admits he spends more time songwriting than writing poetry, he sees little difference.
The album does include some songs with a more narrative turn. Treat says that both “Loving Demon” and “Baby Boy” are “totally autobiographical.” On the liner notes, Treat dedicates the song to “Snoop the baby goat that lived in my backyard for two months in spring 2019.” The upbeat lyrics do more than tell a story of an unconventional pet; instead, Treat both humanizes and elevates the animal from “nuzzl[ing] his horns” to being “lifted by a sea of girls / with lights above shining down on his furry crown.”
Treat’s literary background also provide fodder for the allusions woven throughout the songs. Noting that he appreciates the lyrics of such writers as John Prine, he says, “this whole album is kind of heady—heady music, heady lyrics—experimental. And I was in the books while writing that album.” Indeed, the songs contain references to Homer and the classics as well as musical and biblical allusions. “Layla (Pass me the Orange Moon),” which provided inspiration for the album’s cover art, invokes Apollo, Jupiter, and even Jesus, “passing a tin tray for my tears” or moonwalking.
The aural nature of Treat’s poetic lyrics is highlighted in the opening track “Anybody but You” with clever internal rhyme throughout and strong assonance in the chorus:
I woulda shied from the lights, did an Irish goodbye
And retired to my mind’s piano tune
But something in the sky magnetized you and I to that room. . .
The lyrics of that song also make use of strong sensory images, both literal and figurative: “sunset hair” and “pearls. . .hanging like a shoreline / between your chest and the waves of your neck. . . .”
Some of Treat’s most vivid visual details are found in “Phoenix,” one of the singles released in advance of the album with a face-painting video. Drawing from the ancient myth of the bird reborn from ashes, he sings:
Everybody’s got the phoenix in their face
The belly is your nose,
Your eyebrows are the wings
Your upper lip is the legs
The flame for when you cry
Everybody’s got the phoenix over their eyes.
Throughout the album, traces of 70s rock emerge, particularly in “Stay Getting High on Your Love,” which Treat calls his “disco song. . . groovy and simple and danceable.” The backup vocals by Lindsay Lou and Rachel Davis evoke images of Motown–the Vandellas or the Pips–with choreographed moves in the background.
While the lyrics of the songs, poetic and often ambiguous, invite close listening—and re-listening, the musicality of the album sets it apart. Treat’s sometimes raspy voice works so well with these songs, a departure from his earlier ventures into bluegrass, rock, and even gospel, and the harmony vocals are a credit to da Costa’s discernment.
Treat realizes that the directions he chooses may not be textbook music marketing. He has friends who tell him, “Charlie, pick a lane, bro.” He adds, “Music marketing these days is focused on brand and purpose: Your look, your font, and the colors and the outfit need to be consistent. I’ve been having that conversation with people lately about what makes the most sense careerwise and marketingwise. It’s not doing a bluegrass album followed up by an Indie pop album, but that’s who I am. This is my art, and that’s how my songs are being written.”
