Louise, an avid naturalist and forager, draws from the guidance that the natural world provides. Whereas portrayals of women in nature are often demeaning and powerless, a folk waif, Louise uses songs such as “Pipevine Swallowtails” to reframe them more powerfully. By reframing traditional music styles and lyricism with a feminist stance, Deeper Woods blends the spiritual with the cerebral. Sarah Louise is actively blending natural themes with explorations of complex emotions. The Appalachian valley is the setting for her stories of independence, solitude, and awe. “Bowman’s Root” and “Fire Pink And Milkweed” take their names from plants that grow on the edges of meadows, reflecting the album’s central theme of liminality. These liminal spaces and complicated emotions are made ever clearer by Louise’s nuanced performances and arrangements, with subtle melodic flares and delicate, sometimes dramatic, shifts in atmosphere.