Bridge Exclusive: Claire Adams - 'Westerlies' Video Premiere

On “Westerlies,” Claire Adams paints the fundamental truths of life with a delicate brush. 

The singer-songwriter, who currently divides her time between Kansas City and Guadalajara, Mexico, is a judicious wordsmith who often employs nature as a muse. Here, she observes life, death and connection through these gentle occurrences of beauty – a slight crisp of wind, a twinkling snowflake, a tree shedding its seasonal layers. 

“I try not to dwell on thoughts of death, but it is sort of an inevitability, an unavoidable subject,” Adams said. “I wanted to connect those thoughts to nature in really soft, calm metaphors."

The new music video provides more welcoming visual landscapes. Adams enlisted four friends to help put the song together, and all of them appear in the video from their respective homes.

“The process for the recording was really natural, connecting with new friends and old,” she said, adding that each of them brought a touch of home to their parts – Adams at her parents’ farm in Kansas, Fritz Hutchison on a twangy mandolin in KC, fiddlist Lyndsey Pruett taking inspiration from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, NC, and the effortless flair of guitarist Abraham Villaseñor in Guadalajara. Additionally, Adams recorded her parts both in Guadalajara and with additional recording, mixing and mastering by Duane Trower at Weights + Measures in KC.

“Westerlies” is available to download or stream at Claire Adams' Bandcamp page.