The Accidentals, power band born in Traverse City and based in Nashville released the music video for their new single “Eastern Standard Time” last Friday – a silver and sterling indie folk song that gives a heartfelt nod to their beloved home country with footage shot on the Leelanau Peninsula.

Accidentals‘ Katie Larson shares that ‘Eastern Standard Time’ was written with artist and songwriter Peter Mulvey. “We met Peter when we played on a Tuesday at Frederick Meijer Gardens with Ralston Bowles & Friends,” she says, noting, “Peter plays guitar on this track and the arrangement of this song is breathtaking. »

She explains their inspiration: “Sometimes when you get into co-writing, you’re looking for things you have in common that you can write about. So after studying mushrooms and nature on Zoom for a good 30 minutes, we decided to write a song about the mystery and beauty that exists in this connection between his home state – Wisconsin – and our State of origin.

The lyrics are delivered with tenderness, but don’t hold back on their power: The Accidentals share that “threats to our remaining freshwater resources, the lasting effects of colonization on Indigenous peoples, and climate change…are all things we were thinking about as we wrote Eastern Standard Time. [The lyric] “three fires burn ancient bloodlines,” pays homage to the three Native American tribes that make up much of the Midwest.

Music video features ethereal landscapes of Leelanau County which Larson says, “is courtesy of [Lake Leelanau resident] Elijah Allen, who captured drone footage of the Leelanau countryside, and himself skating on the frozen North Leelanau Lake.

Allen is a local contractor and builder as well as a movie buff and winter sports enthusiast. He is now adding the music video producer to his credits after The Accidentals saw a riveting video he posted about the glass-like lake online in January and asked to collaborate.

The Accidentals recorded “Eastern Standard Time” at their own Crooked Moon studios in Nashville. It’s the first single from their self-released TIME OUT Session #2, “an album of collaborations with the songwriters who inspired us to write” which will be released on March 4. The TIME OUT Session #2 album release closely follows TIME OUT Session #1, which rolling stone called “the anthem to unite a splintered America”.

Larson notes, “Our goal with TIME OUT Session #2 is to write songs that build bridges, celebrate our differences, find gratitude in grief, and remind us that we are connected in our humanity.”

A two-month tour of the Midwest kicks off next week: “We’re playing songs from the album on repeat with Kim Richey, Maia Sharp and Beth Nielsen Chapman,” Larson says. A warning to locals, there is a shutdown on March 6 at the Old Art Building in Leland. (Find tickets here.)

Meanwhile, Michigan native and rising modern country artist Sophie Bolen is releasing a single, “Night Owl” this spring, with a video featuring a snowy Glen Haven beach, Glen Lake and the inimitable Art’s Tavern.

Bolen tells Ticker Leelanau of the kismet opportunity: “[Art’s owner] Tim Barr, was so kind. I knew it was impossible to get it as a location, but luckily the day we needed it was their annual cleaning day.

Bolen, of Grand Rapids, has family who have been part of the Glen Arbor community for generations. She jokes that she grew up “roaming all over town, but my cousins ​​were all older than me, so I never got to hang out at Art’s with them.”

Bolen, now 22, has worked steadily in film and advertising since she was 10 (when she co-starred in The Christmas bunny with Florence Henderson). Later, she performed and sang for the soundtrack of The dancing horsebut it wasn’t until she joined a workshop with the producer Matt Wilder and the best Nashville songwriters the world of country music has opened up to him.

She’ll release a batch of her own modern country pop tunes this spring, though “Night Owl” is a borrowed ballad from the acclaimed songwriter. Deanna Walker. “It’s about nostalgia and it’s beautiful. There are lyrics about being in a bar in the middle of the night, and Art had just the right atmosphere. The feeling you get when you walk into Art’s… it’s like walking on a movie set.

Ben Lemmen is the video’s director and cinematographer. Grand Rapids’ Tarren Knox plays Bolen’s love interest. “Ben shot it like a short. It’s really cool to go from outside in the snow to inside Art’s where it’s warm and vibrant and alive.

Tim Barr was behind the bar, of course, “And all the extras were my aunts and uncles and my mother’s cousins [the Thomasmas, Lyons, and Vredevoogd-Combs].”

Bolen dined at Art’s the day after the music video was filmed. “Staff and customers were talking about it while I was a fly on the wall, eating toddlers with the special mustard,” she laughs. “I’m so grateful that everything turned out the way he did, allowing something that normally could never happen. Art’s is the heart of Glen Arbor, and I’m so excited for everyone to see it.

Pictured: ‘Eastern Standard Time’ photo taken by Elijah Allen; on the set of “Night Owl” by Alex Bolen