The Fantastic World of Songstress Allie Crow Buckley

Allie Crow Buckley exists between two very different worlds. The ethereal singer-songwriter splits her time hopping from the bright lights of Los Angeles to the serenity of London’s tranquil countryside.

She admits that the juxtaposition of her physical surroundings provides her with a variety of muses. However, Buckley spends most of her days in the fantastical realm of her imagination, a place no one else can travel to or visit. A space where the mischievous gods Cupid and Dionysus openly commingle with such musical titans as Joni Mitchell and Todd Rundgren.

“I feel like I’m always in the frame of mind of creation, whether it’s music or visuals. I tend to be in that flow as much as possible,” she says, adding that she began writing poetry at the age of two by dictating it to her mother before learning how to write. “Creative writing was always the most important thing to me. I didn’t start performing or making my poems or writing music until I was 23 or something.”

For her sophomore album, the aptly titled Utopian Fantasy, she lived in an English cabin for three weeks among the wonders of Mother Nature, where she regularly took strolls alone and captured whatever the woods had to offer.

“I spent most days walking around through the forest and then coming back and writing. It was a very solitary time, and I think that really shows throughout the record with themes of an internal dialogue and this fantastical world,” Buckley explains. “I was able to really go deep and spend a lot of time on my own reflecting. It was a different way of writing, for sure. It was awesome.”

The process became a soothing “journey,” she adds, which was “a totally new experience, even when you like being alone. Being in a foreign country in the forest, everything was just really going great.”

Musically, Buckley enjoys everything from Black Sabbath (check out her cover of “Changes”) to Brazilian jazz, but she’s also a vivacious reader. While writing Utopian Fantasy, she found herself enthralled by the mythology, which paired well with her temporary digs.

“I became fascinated with the Dionysian mysteries and the myth of Cupid and Psyche, because it felt very apropos for the time we were in. Cupid and Psyche [are] sort of merging into a new world that’s unusual and needing to adapt, and there are wonderful things about it and strange things,” she explains, adding that she recently finished reading The Immortality Key, a book that includes Dionysus mythology.

Buckley is currently on tour promoting her latest offering and will open for indie rockers Lord Huron at Red Rocks for two shows on Wednesday, May 31, and Thursday, June 1. Playing such a beautiful and iconic venue is “a dream come true,” Buckley says.

“The live-performance element is very important to me," she adds. "I guess you can expect a whimsical exchange of magic and depth.”

After listening to Buckley’s music, no one should expect anything less from this songstress with the voice of a Victorian ghost. Her otherworldly aura manifests in many ways, including writing in “spurts,” during which she may “write a song in twenty minutes,” she explains.

“It’s interesting — it all tends to come at once for me. A lot of the visuals, musical elements and lyrics will all start to trinkle in at once, and there starts to be these incredible synchronicities,” she adds. “You’ll start writing one thing and then be somewhere and see a book title that ties into something you were thinking about. Everything starts to culminate around this world. That’s usually what happens for me. I sit down to write, and then it starts.”

But the “time and moment really choose you, at least for me,” she continues, while hinting, like a medium, that she’s already receiving signals from beyond for new material.

“Who knows where I’ll write the next one, but I’m always writing and have a notebook of muses and things that come through. I can be anywhere,” Buckley says. “I get a lot of inspiration while driving and being in sort of that strange in-between of fight or flight. It allows your mind to relax. I do think that’s very similar when you’re alone and you’re walking.

“I think that’s when a lot of people and writers receive information," she continues, "because your brain and your spirit are in a different mode. ... I’m getting tiny little trinkles of what the next record might be, but I’m not sure yet.”

Allie Crow Buckley, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 31, and Thursday, June 1; Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 18300 West Alameda Parkway, Morrison. Tickets are $83.