Ferry Boat

Ferry Boat was produced by drummer/composer Evan Taylor (whose credits include producing the late Bernie Worrell and Jimmy Destri) and features two songs each by Abigail and Lily alongside their take on a number written with them in mind by the friend and musical compatriot, banjo player/multi-instrumentalist Hilary Hawke.

Hawke's "Dreaming of You" opens the EP to showcase the sisters at their purest: two voices at one microphone backed by Hawke's acoustic guitar singing with harmonic bravura an old-school style country song of longing and heartache, a la such classic sibling harmony singers as the Louvins and Everlys, but with their own melodic twists. The rhythm shifts to a mesmeric waltz (played by double drummers) on Abigail's "Bottle of Wine," where the sisters' swirling voices summon up a woozy folk-rock lamentation about how "you and me and a night on the town... with a bottle of wine/that comes between us every time."

Arpeggiated acoustic guitars buoy Lily's hopeful ballad "Lost," which echoes the spirit and sound of mid-1960s Beatles ballads. On her "My Heart Floated Away," Abigail's layer cake of backing vocals offer a counterpoint to Lily's delivery of the gently whimsical lyrics. On the closing track, Abigail's title tune "Ferry Boat," the arrangement pares back down to the sisters' voices and an acoustic guitar. As the lyrics wish for transport back to the simpler beginnings of a love, Lily laces gentle "oohs" behind her sister's reading of the lyric.

The two have been singing and harmonizing from their youth in, first, Brooklyn, NY and later the Hudson River Valley, heard on their father's children's albums (which have won him three Grammys) and other recordings as well as at festivals, benefits and tribute shows. Abigail and Lily had relocated to Los Angeles after graduating from college to pursue non-musical creative interests when they got an opportunity to record as a trio with their half-sister Jessica Craven (daughter of film director Wes Craven) in the home studio of singer Michael Fitzpatrick (Fitz and The Tantrums).

The resulting seven-song, self-titled 2005 debut EP by The Chapin Sisters enjoyed strong support from the taste-making L.A. indie radio station KCRW as a demo, and spawned a viral underground hit with their reinterpretation of the Britney Spears hit "Toxic." The three began performing and put out a debut album, Lake Bottom LP, in 2008. Since Jessica bowed out of the group following the birth of her first child, Abigail and Lily have carried on with another EP (Oh, Hear the Wind Blow), two albums (Two and Today’s Not Yesterday) and a warmly-received, gender-shifting album salute to another set of harmony-singing siblings, A Date With the The Everly Brothers. They’ve done two tours as background singers and opening act for She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward) in addition to their own tours and shows.

Along the way they've earned kudos in the media with their meld of folk music roots with modernist sensibilities plus their alluring vocals. Amazon.com praises their "enchanting harmonies and lyrics that are infused with as much hope as they are longing." Similarly, Consequence of Sound notes how the sisters "create powerful harmonies that simultaneously awe with their beauty and recollect memories probably better left untouched."

Ferry Boat was recorded in New York City, and is the first recording by Abigail and Lily since they each gave birth to a first child. The sessions for the EP had further emotional ripples due to being recorded some two weeks after the November 2016 presidential elections. “Music is a place that feels nourishing for us," says Lily. "In our current political climate, an escape from reality is no longer possible, but the time spent in the studio was certainly a refuge,” recalls Lily.

“Music is something positive that we could put into the world. And now as new mothers it feels more powerful than ever,” concludes Abigail.

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