country weekend part 2: in the forest

 

country weekend part 1: horse ride

This past weekend my BFF Alissa, her lovely friend Anna (who was visiting from Italy), and I rented a car and escaped the city for a few days. We started our little holiday with a morning trail ride at the horse farm where Alissa has been taking riding lessons. The morning started and ended with rain, but it miraculously stopped for the duration of our ride. It was my first time really riding a horse, and it was amazing. The misty countryside was absolutely breathtaking, with cool grey skies and the changing fall colours. I wish I could have taken photos during the ride! Riding was alternately calming and exhilarating, as I started to get comfortable on the horse and then we shook things up a bit (literally) by speeding up to a trot. We even did a little galloping - yikes. I really want to do it again!

This is one of the old retired horses wandering around on the property. She was really skinny and had burrs stuck in her hair, but she was still beautiful.

And this is Bear, one of the farm dogs. He was so sweet - aggressively affectionate (he even head-butted my camera when I was trying to take his picture because he wanted so badly for me to pet him). He followed along for our whole ride.

Flickering Flashlight

Photo by Celia Perrin Sidarous.

 Today is the official release of Adam and the Amethyst's new album, "Flickering Flashlight" on Kelp Records. I have actually been listening to it for many months already, since my brother gave me an early version when I was working on the cover art, and I absolutely adore it. Adam and I composed the image for the cover together, with various objects he and I have collected over the years. I photographed our composition and made a painting of it. Here it is:

The album (which can be streamed here or ordered here) has already received some great reviews and a cover story in the Hour in Montreal.

They will be playing here in Toronto tomorrow night, a few more shows in Ontario and the East Coast over the next couple of weeks, and in Brooklyn on Nov. 9th. The Kelp site has a listing of venues and dates.   

Aaaand... They also have a beautiful new video for one of my favourite songs (NSFW due to the skinny-dipping). It was made at Toronto Island by Yuula Benivolski.

ADAM & THE AMETHYSTS - Dreaming (NSFWish) from kelprecords on Vimeo.