Our new single, “Roots,” came out last Friday. We are so proud of this song. It’s about the people and places that shape a person into the indefinable, beautiful thing that is the “self.” Please listen, enjoy, and share with fellow music lovers! Without you, we would not be Acaciawood.

Following the release of our new single, we traveled to southern Michigan and played two beautiful shows on back-to-back nights. This mini-tour was special for many reasons, but I’ve noticed in myself a distinct feeling of “success” that I haven’t yet felt after travel performances.

Success is an elusive metric in the world of entertainment. I will turn 25 in two weeks, and part of me dreads having made it through a quarter of my life without hitting some sort of “big break.” Intellectually, I know this is absurd, but youth is undeniably prized in the world of music. Musicians that I model myself after, such as Joni Mitchell and Madison Cunningham, both had multiple albums (and in the latter case, Grammy nominations) beneath their belts by the age of 25.

On the other hand, within the past few years, several artists have broken into the mainstream for the first time after a decade of work in the music industry. Raye, Olivia Dean, and Noah Kahan all achieved what looked like “overnight success” after 10 years of lost record deals and temptations to quit the industry altogether.

I should be heartened by this. After all, it was only in college that I decided to pursue a career in music, and it’s only been 5 years since we released our first single. I’ve got 5 more years before I should technically even consider giving up.

But maybe I shouldn’t be judging myself by this metric at all. Maybe my “success” as a musician won’t ever look like a stadium tour or Coachella headlining set.

The core of my work is to write and perform beautiful, life-giving music. I’ve had countless opportunities to do so over the past five years. I almost forget that Acaciawood released an album of original music two years ago. People are still listening to it and enjoying it and buying copies of it at our shows. We don’t have a million monthly listeners. In fact, we don’t even have a thousand. But this weekend, we traveled several hours from home and played two shows for audiences of eager and attentive people who showed up, in real life, to listen to our songs and buy merchandise and tell us that our music is beautiful.

The first show was a house concert outside Detroit. Our hosts paid for us to play a show in their living room. They provided us with a free place to stay and copious quantities of snacks from Trader Joe’s. They invited their whole community to come and enjoy our music, free of charge, and encouraged them to share pictures and videos of the performance on social media. They told us that they especially hoped the young women and girls in their town would be inspired by our work.

They had never met us before the show. They had never seen us perform before. Yet they gave us the space to play and (according to what they have expressed) truly loved the experience.

Our second show was in Ann Arbor at the historic Canterbury House. I booked a show there purely because I knew Joni Mitchell had played a Canterbury show in the early stages of her career. We knew some people in the area, but frankly, I was terrified that nobody would show up.

The venue turned out to be a perfect, cozy space reminiscent of a living room. Enough people arrived to fill it to a comfortable capacity. To my absolute delight, one couple in attendance had used our tune “Secret Song” as their first dance at their wedding. The night of the show was also their first wedding anniversary.

After the show, people we’d never met before were buying our albums and telling us about how much they’d loved our music. Some had come at the advice of friends and family, some saw our Instagram ads, one simply wandered in from around the corner. We got to meet an entirely new audience and feel welcomed in a town where we had booked a show on a whim.

At the end of the weekend, we’d made enough money to cover our travel expenses, pay ourselves for the performance, and put money toward recording a new song. For the first time ever, we made money touring. I can’t stress enough just how rare that is.

The people of Michigan have officially won our hearts, and I’m certain we will return. A new goal of mine is to play the Ark (another historically significant venue in Ann Arbor), and after this weekend, I actually feel like that’s an achievable goal. Two weeks ago, I was having nightmares about playing to an empty room. This week, my heart is full remembering the eager faces of our audiences in Detroit and Ann Arbor, and seeing the tears in the eyes of the couple who chose to spend their first anniversary at an Acaciawood show.

Success for an independent artist probably doesn’t look like Coachella. It might look like 35 audience members, a warm space, and the chance to play a show at the same venue as your musical idols. It might look like morning coffee with your house concert host family, and the way the young girls in the audience look at you with hope in their eyes. It might look like paying for 1,177 miles’ worth of gas1.

These are baby steps, I know. And I can see a future where our success looks more like what the mainstream imagines. But for now, I am reveling in the joy of indie artistry, and learning more and more how to play outside the rules of the industry. Maybe that’s how you really win.

If you’re interested in hosting an Acaciawood house concert sometime in the future, please reach out! These performances are very special to us, and we want to expand our house concert series in 2026-2027. During the first week of July of this year, we will be in North Carolina and are looking for house concert hosts (especially in the Asheville/Greenville/Charlotte areas). If any of this interests you, email us at acaciawoodband@gmail.com with dates/months that work best for you.

-Brigid Burt

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We’re thrilled to announce that our new single, “Roots,” will hit all digital platforms on Friday, April 24. Springtime has always been Acaciawood’s favorite time to release new music! April is, after all, the waking-time.

We wanted to do something special for our fans, so we’ve rigged up a pre-save link that, once activated, will allow you to hear a sneak preview of the new tune. All you have to do is click the link, sign into your streaming platform of choice, and boom! You’ll have access to a clip. By pre-saving the song, it will be automatically added to your streaming library on release day, so you won’t miss it!

CLICK HERE FOR THE MAGIC LINK TO PRE-SAVE AND HEAR A PREVIEW OF “ROOTS.”

Note: once you sign into your platform, a message may appear saying that Tribly (the pre-save platform) will gain access to “edit” your streaming account. Fear not: all this means is that the song Roots will be automatically added to your library without having to manually add it on the release day.

How incredible these last four years have been. It’s hard to find words to express what this project has meant to me creatively, emotionally, and spiritually. Through writing and playing, I discovered parts of myself that were pivotal in leading me onto—and through—the path I am now pursuing. As of next week, I will be leaving Acaciawood.

My decision to step back from the band did not come easily. It required deep discernment to arrive at a place of peace. I am months away from embarking on my new journey as a nurse! This is something I have been working towards for the last year and a half. I wrote ‘Sahalee’ for moments like these: moments of big change, when I needed to be reminded that moving forward is never done alone.

I leave this chapter of my life so full of joy, holding close the countless memories I’ve made alongside these incredible women. I also leave full of hope, knowing my beautiful bandmates will continue to create exactly what is meant to be created within Acaciawood moving forward.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me during my time growing with this band. I will cherish it forever.

My last performance with the girls will be on Tuesday, February 17th at Happenstance Cafe (a very special place to me) here in Pittsburgh!!! 6:30-8pm!! I would love for you to be there to close out the end of a beautiful era, and to welcome a new one!🥹🤍

Love always,

Luna

“Maria Walks Amid the Thorn” fell into our lap, fortuitously and without fuss, through a Google search result. Unromantic, I know. It does seem strange that it appeared so near the top of my search for “Advent hymns,” being a rather obscure piece from a German songbook, but I suspect it was more fate than algorithm.

The lyrics captured my attention immediately. They were moody, wintry, and best of all, they included a mention of roses. What more can Acaciawood ask for?

I nearly threw out the melody, which sounded clunky and stale when I played it on guitar. My husband heard me lamenting the hymn’s, well, hymnal structure. No matter what I did, the song seemed determined to sound like the favorite of an enthusiastic 1970s church lady. He urged me not to throw in the towel, picked up another guitar, and began fiddling with more interesting and open chord shapes. Within 10 minutes, we had reworked the accompaniment, keeping the original melody intact.

I sent the demo to my bandmates. We scheduled a recording day at Arsenal Farms, the the Stapletons’ home studio. Once again, we returned to the birthplace of Acaciawood.

The Attic (our shorthand for Arsenal Farms) will always be our musical home. It’s the place where we recorded our first single, Bend the Roses, and the closing song on our debut record, Made Good. The recording space is comfortable and deliciously moody. Occasionally, you’ll hear birdcalls coming in through the windows. Perhaps you’ll also hear a scream from one of the Stapletons’ 6 children (or, for that matter, my one-year-old), but we consider it part of the ambiance.

With help from Casey Stapleton, who acted as recording engineer, sound engineer, and epic pep-talker, we pulled it off: the bulk of the song was completed in one 6-hour day. Catherine Mattern added beautiful viola, and Kate Stapleton later arranged and tracked the harp. We stretched ourselves and tried new things, including an ambitious choral moment at the end of the song. We couldn’t be prouder of the result.

The original hymn, “Maria durch ein dornwald ging,” is German. Though it gained popularity in the 19th century, there is strong evidence to suggest that it was widely known as far back as 1608. The first three verses and the melody were published in Maria von Trapp’s “Around the Year With the Von Trapp Family,” where it was listed among the family’s Advent traditions.

Advent is a season lost to the twenty-first century. The four weeks preceding Christmas, once an opportunity for sacred silence, have become loud and gaudy. Personally, I’m terrified of setting foot in Costco between October and January. But escaping the consumerist nightmare is impossible. At home, on our screens, constant advertisements capitalize on and distort our genuine impulse for charity. What better image for our society, which hollows out all things mysterious and supernatural, leaving behind an empty, garishly colored husk?

The woman at the center of this hymn, Maria, is the very image of Advent. She bears within her body a sacred presence. She waits, silent and attentive, for the time that He will arrive. She walks through a long-barren wood, alone and yet never solitary — she is the image of contemplative peace.

And in her wake, life springs forth. At the beginning of the song, we hear that “no leaf” has grown amid the thorn for seven years. Yet, as the woman and her unborn child pass, life springs forth with intensity and astounding beauty. Not only leaves, but “roses on the thorns appear.” It is life in abundance, a harbinger of the beauty that will accompany the child’s birth.

Our first single, Bend the Roses, is a song of heartbreak, confusion, and obscurity. It asks a question that remains unanswered. Thorns and roses will always coexist. Beauty and pain are inextricable in a fallen world. But when you listen to “Maria Walks,” we invite you to meditate on hope.

Maria Walks Amid the Thorn is a song for winter. Listen to it on the darkest, coldest nights of the season. Listen on the most jubilant, snow-white mornings. Listen, be still, watch, and wait.

-Brigid Burt

Link to the song. Please consider buying it on Apple or Amazon, even if only symbolically. It’s only 99 cents!

Lyrics:

Maria walks amid the thorn

Kyrie eleison

Which seven years no leaf has borne, she walks amid the wood of thorn

Jesu et Maria

What ‘neath her heart does Mary bear?

Kyrie eleison

A little child does Mary bear, beneath her heart he nestles there

Jesu et Maria

And as the two are passing near

Kyrie eleison

Lo, roses on the thorns appear, lo roses on the thorns appear

Jesu et Maria

We are pleased to announce the impending arrival of our wintertide hymn, Maria Walks Amid the Thorn. Also, welcome to our email list!

Maria Walks Amid the Thorn (a mouthful, I know) will hit the internet at 12 am EST on December 9, 2025. Creating this song was a whirlwind. We worked with new instruments, new arrangement styles, and a new producer to fashion what I can only describe as a musical snowglobe: it’s a dreamy, enchanting winter vignette that swirls and blusters. We cannot wait to share it with you.

If you’re reading this, it probably means you contributed to our Kickstarter almost three years ago. We’re so grateful that you helped us to begin our journey as recording artists! Please remain subscribed to this list, as we’ll be giving updates about new projects coming VERY soon. Next week, on release day, I’ll be sending out the full story of how we discovered and created Maria Walks. You won’t want to miss it.

Oh, and if you have a moment, please pre-save the single. It’s a quick way to boost our music within the almighty Algorithm. Here’s the link:
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/acaciawood/maria-walks-amid-the-thorn?utm_campaign=website&utm_medium=Email+&utm_source=SendGrid

Thanks a bunch, and see you on the 9th!

-Brigid from Acaciawood

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