_{By Abi Falin Horspool}

Growing up, Debra Fotheringham’s life was accentuated by the sound of music. “I knew dad was home because you could hear jazz bass through the walls of his room,” she recalls. “And I just fell in love with music at an early age.” By the time she was 14, Deb had picked up guitar, played her first show, and decided that music was going to be part of her forever. 

Later, Deb became a founding member of The Lower Lights, a music collective formed in 2009. “It’s just been this beautiful community for me of people that are supportive and that I love a lot,” she says. She treasures every chance she gets to play with them.

In her solo work, she’s dabbled in everything from folk and acoustic to rock-jazz and Americana. Each record she’s created has been a flagstone aligned with the pavement of that period of her life. Deb’s latest project, Valley of Annihilation, is her first album since 2017 and is her most personal yet.

Releasing today, October 24, the album was conceived during a period of isolation in idyllic Vermont, where Deb and her husband moved during the pandemic. Living in the woods, away from the familiar rhythms of Utahn life, Deb confronted her deteriorating marriage. “The isolation sort of showed us all the cracks in the relationship,” she says. “This album’s kind of about that whole journey of discovery of figuring out who I am without that person in my life,” and then “clinging to love in all its forms and not letting go of love when things get hard.”

She structured the album to reflect that journey. It starts with self-compassion before moving into relationships, and finally, Deb says, it’s about “understanding the power of letting ourselves feel our feelings.” 

Deb’s songs have always been autobiographical. “I grew up in a family where emotions weren’t dealt with a lot,” she says. “Music has always been my way of expressing myself and my emotions in ways I hadn’t been able to in my life.”  In Valley of Annihilation, that honesty reaches its peak. Amidst the broken pieces of her own relationship, she hopes listeners “find something in it that resonates with their experience and that they feel a little less alone.”

She says the last track, “Hibernation,” is particularly meaningful to her. Writing it was cathartic, as it helped her move through her feelings, good and bad. She says it’s about the “deep, hard things… but also the beauty of life and the beauty of what you can experience.”

For Deb, creating the album was a beautiful process as she worked with Scott Wiley at Provo’s June Audio. “I want to sing Scott Wiley’s praises,” she says. “I just think he’s a genius… He was just a total joy to work with and created such a safe space.” Because of that safe space and the catharsis of creating the record, “the whole experience was so joyful.”

Valley of Annihilation is a testament to both Deb’s growth as an artist and as a person. “This is the first record I’ve made where everything just felt right,” Deb says. “It just flowed so easily.” For listeners, it offers beauty and a space to feel understood, to feel less alone, and to connect with their emotions. For Deb, music is all about that connection. “I’m a little bit shy and a little bit introverted,” she says. “Music is like instant connection because someone can feel something so deep through music. You could have like an hour-long conversation and never convey those thoughts or feelings.”

Deb wants to consistently create that sort of connection for people through her work. “I don’t want seven years to pass or however long it’s been since the last one,” she jokes. “I really want to be more consistent with making music, and recording music, and just playing as many shows as I can, and just filling my life with music.”

Whatever she does next, Deb will keep giving people a safe place in her sound. “As the world gets increasingly scary and people are hurting,” she says, “music is this beautiful refuge that we can all find beauty in.” 

Make sure to follow Deb Fotheringham on Instagram. You can listen to “Bright Eyes,” Valley of Annihilation’s lead single, below!