Origin of Calm Embrace 
 

Kristin Fraley: Vocalist, Song Writer
Michael Tillman: Vocalist, Song Writer, and sensational Guitarist 

As we listen to Calm Embrace, we embark on a journey  inspired by the magical place of Denton TX. It is here where I danced beneath EB's mystical bubbles on Fry & Hickory Streets as he'd read me my fortune whilst smoking herbs from his handcrafted pipes.

It's where I paid coinage to local talent strumming on their guitars despite my own quite shallow pockets and where I rode my bike until 4am to enjoy clear starry nights in the company of a moon so bright, it hurt your eyes to stare. Backyards lit porch stages with Christmas lights year round and every performance seemed to lend itself to a whispered rumor, a plan, and eventually an "amazing party, but you had to be there to understand."
If I had a nickel...

It was here where I shivered in lines for drinks at shows wearing too few layers because hey, beauty is pain, right? Surrounded by people always trying to look like they belonged exactly right where they stood, I found the small town enormous in it's possibility--limitless for a time even. It never once ran out of familiar faces.

It was here where I loved like a miser loves gold,  howled like an beast caught in a bear trap, and learned to lick my aging wounds.
It was here where I rooted myself deep into Philosophy, Culture, Fashion, and Art which taught me exactly how little I know about any of them. I donned almost every color of hair, I played Billiards like it was going out of style, drank tequila like it was a chilled juice, and I finally met the "Black Jacket" of my dreams that would sing unabashedly at the top of  his lungs the most beautiful love songs from musicals I was  yet to be obsessed with... Wow. The memories a lit cigarette can still stir...

These songs are inspired by my deepest and most cherished joys and they bubbled up around me until I could not keep from singing, I could not keep from writing, and eventually I could not keep from recording them to ensure I would never lose touch with that incredible magic that was once a part of my life.

I imagine myself reaching out to pick up my cup of handcrafted "Sweet and Sassy" tea in the local café sitting once more at a small table in the corner with barely room for two on a chair that bruised my shins every time I picked it up to scoot around a friend's newly fragmented essay or painting under construction. It is here where Calm Embrace was born, and it is in these memories of my loud, graceless, though often timid years that I store away my cherished,  ever-growing pearl, my earlier youth. 

I hope our music brings you as much comfort as it has brought me over the years, and perhaps even some company. : )