FITZROY HARBOUR – Musician Tara Hope has lent her voice to the Church of Trees’ new album.

The Ottawa Valley-based musician was one of two new voices the Ottawa-based synth/dream pop project Church of Trees added for the band’s third studio release New Bold Dawn.

When West Carleton Online last caught up with Hope, she had just recorded the Christmas song My Honey Home for Christmas to add to the pantheon.

The singer-songwriter has been working with Church of Trees for more than a year.

“So, I have spent the last year or so working with a really cool band called Church of Trees,” Hope released in a statement last week. “When I started with them back in February 2019, they already had two albums under their belt, packed full of punchy and unique tunes featuring some amazing local vocalists. Now we are releasing a third album. This has been an incredible experience and has turned out being much more relevant for these strange times than I ever imagined.”

Church of Trees released its first album in 2017 called Primitive Creatures and dropped a second album in 2018 called The Dark and the Light.

The new album was released May 1 and singer Allison Stanton joins Hope as the two new female vocalists in the band. Hope and Stanton joined bandleader Bernard Frazer at Skylark Park to write and then record the album.

 “I’ve never met two singers with such great pipes and so little ego,” Frazer said. “Learning to sing together was a challenge, but it was so rewarding.”

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic prematurely ended their recording session and the trio had to get creative to finish the album.

“Ultimately, we had to record vocals for End of Days at our respective home studios then send those tracks to Jordon at Skylark Park,” Frazer said. “We didn’t have the benefit of Jordon’s great equipment or his valuable direction, but we worked it out. End of Days was too important to leave off the album.”

If you would like to hear the album, click here.

Hope has her own studio located in the White Lake area called Tara Hope Music.