In the early 2000s, Robert Baier discovered a set of reel-to-reel tapes in his mother’s attic. They contained an album worth of song she had recorded thirty years ago as a young girl in Germany. Surprised by his mother’s secret past, he recorded the tapes onto cassettes and gave them out to family members as Christmas gifts. The tapes eventually made it to musician J Mascis, who in turned sent it to Orange Twin Records.
In 2006, Orange Twin released Colour Green, a remastered collection of those attic tapes.
The album is an intimate insight into the quiet life of young Sibylle Baier. The first track, “Tonight” describes a vulnerable time with her early marriage when she came home stressed from work and cried as her husband played guitar for her. Every song is a similar description of mundane moments from Baier’s life in Germany.
Since its release, Baier only recorded one new song and otherwise kept herself out of the public eye. Despite all the press and exposure her music has gotten, Baier’s attitude towards her music is the same as when she left Germany for America. Her main focus is on her family, and she doesn’t care about much beyond that.
A similar situation happened to British musician Vashti Bunyan, who quit music after her 1970 debut album Just Another Diamond Day went largely unnoticed. Disillusioned, she left the music industry to care for her three children.
In the early 2000s, her music was rediscovered. Musicians like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom began talking about her in interviews, citing Bunyan as an influence. After finding out about her newfound fame, Bunyan began working on new material. Her children grown out of the house, she was free to pick up her old dreams and see them through.
In 2005, she released Lookaftering her first album in over 30 years.
Bunyan continued to grow as an artist, working with other bands such as Animal Collective and Piano Magic, until she released her final album, Heartleap, in 2014.
Both Baier and Bunyan, forgotten female musicians from the 70s, grew into folk legends decades after their time. However, despite their troubled careers, both artists chose to retire on their own terms. Baier, keeping with her humble personality, stayed out of the mainstream and let her music speak for itself. Bunyan, however, returned to making music until she felt that she was done. She left music again in 2014 because she wanted to, unlike in the 70s, when her album’s reception forced her to quit.
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