We at Great Comfort are absolutely thrilled to announce the latest addition to the family: Frog in the Reeds (songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Mary Brewer). The debut album, Walking Tour of Spiders in the Woods, is a prayer uttered in quiet seclusion amongst gentle guitars and softly moaning strings. It is a vehement shout, a flowering shoot of declaration.

Brewer is the product of an upbringing in the wooded hills of Pennsylvania, and a soundtrack of frog calls in a nearby pond, thunder, lowing cows, and the hum of a racetrack on weekend nights. She was influenced by a steady diet of pierogies, seventies classic rock, church hymns, Dukes of Hazzard and Johnny Mathis. Such are the diverse shaping forces felt in her music. Indeed, no single musical classification could tie up this extraordinary collection, but her voice, utterly unique and compelling, binds the bundle effortlessly.

Brewer describes Walking Tour as “…the most difficult and exhilarating painting I’ve ever painted”. Quite. It is a journey of intimacy and sweep, of relaxed authority and unbridled curiosity. Joined by the masterful production skills of Daniel Smith and a merry crew of musician friends on upright bass, flute, drums, tuba, voice, and percussion, Walking Tour of Spiders in the Woods is a joyous march, a poem, a piece of a dream or an exposed inner thought…some sing-alongs, some listening songs, each revealing or communicating with the One who makes all things new.

Go here to listen to ‘Refuge’, and here to order the album. You won’t regret it.