While driving through California’s Shasta National Forest — an area plagued by a series of forest fires — new age guitarist-composer Jake Soffer was taken aback when he spotted a single tree thriving amidst the charred remains of the surrounding forest. The powerful image evoked in Jake an ambiguous sense of tragedy mixed with hope, and it inspired the title track for his latest EP, The Tree That Remained Standing.

The metaphor of a lone tree surviving such devastation is a conceptual touchstone for Jake. He wrote the EP during a period of intense introspection where he faced the end of a relationship, made sense of pandemic isolation, and discovered his signature music sensibility. He has emerged an impressionistic composer, a clever arranger, and a multi-talented guitarist, equally adept at complex finger picked passages and dynamic clean-toned electric guitar soundscapes.

“The world being put on pause ushered in a lengthy period of self- reflection for me,” the Portland, Oregon artist shares. “I experienced the ups and downs of confronting deeply personal changes, all while living in a society enduring growing pains of its own. I found myself falling in love - over and over again - with the guitar as my instrument and voice, promising I would always use it to express the things I have no words for. I also realized after years of playing in bands that this serene and healing style was the most honest for me.”

Jake’s music conjures deep meditative moments with nature. He draws from the sounds of folk, American primitive guitar, ambient, and new age to create a unique, non-lyrical musical voice. Jake approaches the guitar as if it was an orchestra and unlocks the full tonal range, and rhythmic possibilities of the instrument. Alongside this organic and virtuosic approach, he experiments with ambient textures and looping. His work recalls the adventurous yet accessible musicality of guitarists such as Pat Metheny, John Fahey, Bill Frisell, William Tyler, Bibio, and Marisa Anderson.

Jake is formally trained, and he honed his skills playing guitar in various rock, funk, and jazz bands over the course of 15 years, most notably the jam-band funk-rock band, Easy There Tiger. He seeded the path to his solitaire musicality with his debut single, “Rose Hymn.” Next, he released his debut album, Guitar In A Room, a hypnotic solo guitar album centered around drones and ambience, a precursor to The Tree That Remained Standing era.

The EP single, From Sea To Sky, is best described as ethereal Americana. With finger picked acoustic passages that conjure a rural virgin beauty, and balmy electric guitar melodies, he sketches a breathtaking nature expanse from the deep blue sea to the soft blue sky. The country-flavored violin - masterfully played by Grace Honeywell - adds an elegant down-home flair to the proceedings. This is the kind of comfort song you want to run to when life becomes overwhelming. “I tried to capture the feeling of self-doubt and anxiety you get when having to confront personal challenges, but also the pleasure and optimism you get in finding an escape from things, be it temporary or permanent,” Jake says. “This song is an homage to those escapes.”