Old Imagined Future–the short story

Banjoist, songwriter, and poet Aidan VanSuetendael creates intricate songs that blend evocative storytelling with undercurrents of folk and Americana. Her debut album Old Imagined Future weaves poetic lyrics and dreamlike imagery through songs she wrote during and after the pandemic, while buying and restoring a dusty, falling-apart house she bought in East Nashville—perhaps a metaphor for this time overlapping with the end of her band, Bill and the Belles, and the navigation of heartbreak and change.

While VanSuetendael’s intricate banjo playing shapes the foundation of her songwriting, the album heavily features her fingerstyle guitar playing, showcasing a broader musical landscape with lush arrangements and instrumentation. Produced by Maya de Vitry (of The Stray Birds), Old Imagined Future features a stellar cast of musicians and a variety of instrumental voices, from electric guitar to Mellotron to harmonium. A storyteller with a keen sense of atmosphere, VanSuetendael’s lyrics invite you to step into the songs and become part of their worlds.

The long story

Aidan VanSuetendael is a songwriter and banjo player based in Nashville, Tennessee. Born in a rural part of Stuart, Florida into a family of artists, she grew up surrounded by music: her mother an Irish step dancer and singer, her father a guitarist, two of her siblings bassists, one sibling a multidisciplinary artist (costume design, drawing, and writing), and her grandfather an animator and cartoonist. 

Captivated by the early 2000s and 2010’s indie/folk movement, VanSuetendael began to learn banjo with the help of her father’s friend Gonzalo Martinez, a phenomenal banjoist, mechanical engineer, Cuban-American, and master of melodic banjo. Through Martinez, she found a deep appreciation of traditional bluegrass and began attending local  festivals and camps. VanSuetendael later attended Denison University, where she studied banjo, guitar, and dobro with musicians Andy Carlson, Gary Puckett, and Adam Schlenker. She graduated with a major in Poetry (studying with writers David Baker, Ann Townsend, Fred Porcheddu, and Michael Croley), along with minors in Bluegrass and Biochemistry, all of which guide her songwriting. 

In 2018, VanSuetendael moved to Nashville, Tennessee to see where music might lead her. Nashville proved to be mystifying and inspiring, a whirlwind of songwriting, oldtime and bluegrass jams, and musical collaboration. She partnered with Oregon-based songwriter and violinist Christiana Zollner to form the short-lived but delightful duo Ladyfolk before the pandemic turned Nashville into a ghost town. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, VanSuetendael joined the internationally-touring band Bill and the Belles on banjo and vocals. The quartet (VanSuetendael, Kalia Yeagle, Kris Truelsen, and Andrew Small) hosted the PBS TV show “Farm and Fun Time” for Radio Bristol, and toured heavily across the USA, Canada, UK, and Ireland. Those years of touring with Bill and the Belles were incredibly important; not only was the band a trial by fire for musical hard skills, it was an opportunity to tour heavily and learn the professional ropes.  

In 2024, after Bill and the Belles called it quits, VanSuetendael began working on Old Imagined Future, her first solo record of all-original songs. VanSuetendael had been writing songs for more than a decade without releasing any of them, and it was time. Maya de Vitry produced the record, bringing her phenomenal sensibility for songcraft and arrangement to the project. The result is an album that tells a story in distinct chapters, with its characters and imagery brought alive by electric, shimmering musicality. 

The record features Anthony da Costa (harmony vocals, electric guitar, baritone guitar), Jo Schornikow (piano, organ, Wurlitzer, Mellotron, synth), Ethan Jodziewicz  (upright bass, electric bass), Dominic Billett (drums, percussion), and Emmanuel Echem (trumpet), and was produced by Maya de Vitry and recorded by Sean Sullivan at the Tractor Shed in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.