An intimate benefit evening with Lost in the Trees, orchestral folk from North Carolina.

Lush clusters of piano, a mysterious sound that might be something being unwrapped, or paper crushed for kindling, and A Church That Fits Our Needs, the second album by North Carolina group Lost in the Trees, is underway, announcing itself as a work of vaulting ambition, a cathedral built on loss and transformation. In the summer of 2009 Ari Picker – writer, composer, and architect of the band – lost his mother, an artist in her own right, when she took her own life. Picker was in the midst of releasing his band’s debut album, All Alone in an Empty House, a collection of folk-inflected songs that surprised with its orchestral arrangements, to an acclaim usually reserved for seasoned veterans: “both heart wrenching and beautiful,” said Paste, while the Huffington Post called the album “spellbinding in its musical ambition, touching in its intimacy, and often overwhelming in its emotional honesty.” Picker took the loss of his mother and set about transforming the events into a tribute, composing, writing lyrics, his mother’s picture above his writing desk: the same picture that now graces the album’s cover. “I wanted to give her a space, in the music, to be, and to become all the things she didn’t get a chance to be when she was alive.”

The result is A Church That Fits Our Needs, an album that can stand beside not only musical journeys like Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night and Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago, but also such literature of loss as Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. 

As on the band’s debut, Picker surrounds himself with musicians who bring his vision to life with verve and sensitivity. A special contribution comes in the vocals of Emma Nadeau, whose soaring wordless melodies counter Picker’s ecstatic vocals throughout. Recorded and produced by Picker in North Carolina, the album was mixed by the legendary Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck), bringing out the lush tones of the orchestrations in their full grandeur. At end of day, this is the album Picker set out to make, a celebration of the woman he calls a “warrior,” and a testament to the power of music to heal and transcend.

$15 tickets guarantee admission but not seating, which is limited. Doors will open at 7:30PM. All ticket sales benefit the Housing Works mission of fighting to end AIDS and homelessness.