A new EP reflects Fences’ nature
Tired of being on lockdown in L.A. during the coronavirus pandemic, singer/songwriter Christopher Mansfield, who performs under the name Fences, decided to head to the mountains and chill out in Big Bear.
He was seeking a change of pace, some tranquility and nice scenery. He thought he might even take up gardening, too.
“The weird thing is I didn’t really do too much writing. I would just have a cup of coffee and sit on my porch and just like look at the trees. It was just relaxing; so quiet,” he said.
The slower pace helped clear his mind, and with time on his hands and no city life to navigate, it spurred his creativity and he came off the mountain to record new EP “Wide Eyed Elk Ensemble” in two days. It’s being released April 30.
“It’s actually my favorite record that I’ve done. Just because I feel like I’m the strongest I’ve been lyrically, I just put a lot of care into the poetry of it, and the music is a good mix of all my records. This feels like where I should be,” said Mansfield, who’s back from his retreat for good and living in the Los Feliz area.
The five-song indie folk rock release mixes a few surprising modern pop elements with his mellow sound.
“I wanted to make something that felt immediate and new, mixing trap beats with banjos and synthesizers,” he said.
Mansfield released his debut studio album, “Fences,” in 2010, which was produced by Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara. He’s also worked with artists such as Cedric Bixler-Zavala (of At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta), Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, including collaborating with the latter two on the hit “Otherside.”
The first single off Fences’ new EP is “Boot Height,” a mellow, country-inspired song about being in love with a girl, starting back in a past life.
“When I was younger I was talking to my grandmother about being a logger with pine trees and I was thinking it would be interesting to fall in love with someone now and telling them that in your past life you loved them too. To me that’s extremely pretty,” he said.
Another alternate look at reality, and a walk by a river in Oregon with a medicine woman, inspired “Shape Shifter,” another standout on the EP.
“It’s just a literal description of a day,” he said. “I was with a medicine woman and took psychedelics and was jumping into the river saying, ‘Thank you river,’ and then I went into a sweat lodge,” he said.
While he was still high, the medicine woman’s daughter told him horses are shape shifters that turn into trees.
“So the horses have shape-shifted from a horse to a tree to a song that I’ve made,” he said with a chuckle.