Lovesong: Sinner's Shrine: Dean Owens

Never meet your heroes they say: you're destined for disappointment or doomed to simply walk in their shoes. Although Dean Owens’ boots are firmly rooted in Caledonia, it’s clear that his musical heart beats in, around and along the arterial song lines that connect the music of Arizona and its bordering states: “a wire around the heart of everything that’s sacred”. This is no cultural desert: Tex Mex and Mariachi boldly blend with Country and Folk to create a very particular brand of Americana. Owens had long been influenced by the weeping steel and aching feel that informs much of the area's music. He was particularly keen on Howe Gelb’s Giant Sand and, tellingly, its bastard offspring Calexico, whose masterful ‘Feast of Wire’ clearly whetted his appetite. He was thus drawn to the source: Tucson’s WaveLab studio, home of Calexico’s founding members Joey Burns and John Convertino. That wondrous duo's muscular rattle and hum underpins much of this adroitly understated album. He's a born storyteller is Dean, yet he ditches the narratives and goes straight to the heart of the matter: these are more cyphers than stories. Ghosts haunt the open roads, borderlands and dusty destinations. They are only ever glimpsed, but are omnipresent: displaced revenants whose whispers and moans tell of loss and longing: missed opportunities and broken promises. Dean cannily drops that syrupy brogue a tone or two and floats his beguiling melancholy over his compadres’ perfect rhythms. It occasionally feels perilously close to pastiche until you remember that, that is the point: Owens is there to tip a hat in homage to his hombres. The cumulative effect is one of gracious gratitude. 

So: never meet your heroes? Dean takes Calexico's wistful template and gently melds and fashions it into something oblique yet unique: something fine. To highlight individual songs would do an injustice to the album’s artful ambience. It feels like an invitation to a gentle journey: you simply need to surrender. That the beatific finale ‘After the Rain’ makes you want to retread your steps, only endorses Tom Wait’s wisdom: the obsession’s in the chasing and not the apprehending. Owen's intent is heartbreakingly direct and tender: “Maybe the sun won’t always shine/And maybe the moon won’t always glow/But if there’s one thing that’s guaranteed it’s/ I’ll always be here for you.” 

'Sinner's Shrine' is not informed by wickedness or worship: Owen's benevolence seeks solace, perhaps even redemption, in the recognition and celebration of influence. That confluence is a river worth crying over. Dean’s dream may be wilfully woozy but it is perfectly realised: spectral yet specific. Before he left for New Mexico, he had told me of his plan: that he had no plan, just hope for a musical journey towards kinship; a yearning to find and befriend the source of his ennui and inspiration. It's an oblique map for a travelogue; but what a trip. Dean Owens left without a destination and, bugger me, he found a home.

Lovesong: Paul Armfield: Domestic

I'm struggling, in search of a leading line.

Perhaps I'll let do Paul do the talking:

"My eyes are ringing and my eyes are sore

There's things out there that I can't ignore

So draw the curtains and lock the door

I've no appetite for more"

'Domestic' is clearly rooted in the idea of 'home'. Armfield apparently gave up on work and decided to hibernate. It seems that he'd been over stimulated by worldy affairs and was intent on retreat: 

"There's nothing being said that I want to hear. And if anybody wants me I'm not here."

His ambitions had become more wholly humble.

"January first. My new year's resolution is to learn the second verse of Auld Lang Syne'. 

I know, I know: comparisons are odious but I'm getting Jake and Jaques with a slight aftertaste of Leonard. Wait, there's a bit of Waits in there too. The ghosts of Thackery, Brel and Cohen are fine spirits to marinate your fledgling chanson in. Perhaps more than anyone, Armfield shares a muse of the mews with Essex folk singer Chris Wood, whose keen eye and dry wit similarly details the familial and the tribal. They occupy common ground as they focus on the solid state of things: the actual world rather than a virtual one. Paul ponders, but his touch is light, coherent, heartfelt and true. His treacley tenor has a calming timbre: perfectly pitched as he sings of the mundanities; toting and detailing the dots that join our everyday. He raises the drawbridge to consider the quotidian and occasionally peers out to squint at the connections outdoors. But how to truly retreat if you are genuinely compassionate and concerned? Paul's looking in to better look out: you can sense the curtains twitching. And in that refined worldview, beyond the sweet ennui, there's a worldly recognition of the bitter divisions that Brexit has elicited; particularly the platform afforded to those with concerns about national identity. Ironic then that Armfield lives on a tiny island anchored to a larger one. From his home on the Isle of Wight he questions the entitlement of belonging. In 'Flagbearers' his kindly gaze drifts from navel fluff to naval flags. 'Washed up on the shore, just a mongrel like yourself... Is that a medal of honour or just a badly drawn drawn bulldog tattoo? He wearily concludes "We are all just strangers." It is perhaps that disheartened sense of dislocation that has ushered him towards the sanctuary and protection of his own threshold. And there there is family. There there is love: "And for the briefest perfect moment I am absolutely yours and you are absolutely mine". Paul considers the empty nest of a newly child free home in 'Fledglings': "The roost is tidier, every room is cleaner, quieter, wider. Less housework yes but much less homely... I still leave the door unlocked." His attention ultimately settles on his life partner, his beloved wife whom he clearly and cleverly eulogises in 'You'. It's a lovesong so artfully, heartfully stuffed with love that you want to hug the both of them: "My heart's a purse that's full to bursting, but the only thing of any worth is a faded crumpled photograph of you." 

It is the rarest of things: a work of quiet, considered beauty: one that takes its own sweet time to reveal itself. With an album so lyrically rich it is easy to overlook the musical content. It's jazz, it's folk, it's lovely. Interestingly Paul chose to record these homely homilies abroad in Stuttgart with European musicians. At the core are Giulio Cantore on guitars and cavaquinho, drummer Johann Polzer and producer Max Braun on bass. Their gentle strums and sophisticated proddings provide the perfect patchwork for what could be the perfect 'duvet album'. And yet, although this album fits like a pair of well loved slippers, Paul's mischief keeps a pebble playfully placed, just in case you should get too comfortable. 

This is ultimately an album written by a man in love with words. His concept is nuanced with caution and care: if there's a more finessed, lyrically astute album released this year I'll eat my Thesaurus. Profound and scintillatingly droll, Paul Armfield is a master of the bon mot and the vinegary vagary. I could flick the artfully printed lyric cards at you and let you find faith in the familiarities. But I can only quote Paul so much, so will leave you with the last lines of the final song: a summation of Domestic's canny conceit: that, although home is where the heart is, we're all home alone. Armfield's search for a sense of home has no cozy conclusion. He settles for 'a lighter darkness'.  'Alone' recognizes the loves and losses that make this sweet, ordinary life such an extraordinary wonder. And appropriately enough, there, finally, is my leading line: This sweet, ordinary album is an extraordinary wonder. 

"Rain flicks the leaves and the wind whips through the trees

And a lighter darkness spills out across the sky

The headlights of the cars lead us back to where we started from

We buckle up and drive ourselves back home

In silence, together but alone"

 

Lovesong: Sylvie Simmons: Blue on Blue

“I’d always thought of the uke as a toy … a little handful of happiness. But not anymore. From the moment I picked it up, I fell in love. A ukulele has a sad, fractured sweetness, like a broken harp. And a modesty. It doesn’t try to impress you, it almost apologizes for being there.”

So spoke Sylvie. 'Fractured sweetness' pretty much sums up the appeal of this delicate offering. It's quite an achievement that an album birthed in hurt is steeped in such serenity. The portents weren't good. Simmons had recorded her 2014 debut 'Sylvie' in Arizona with the grandaddy of Americana, Howe Gelb. She returned to Gelb's favoured Tucson studio WaveLab in 2017 to start work on the follow up. However, whilst out walking in the desert after the first day's recording, a stumble led to serious injury; particularly a badly broken left hand. That hurt not only halted the recordings and challenged Simmons' future uke skills, but actually threatened the loss of a limb. Sylvie retreated to her home in San Fransisco to recover and reconsider. Time told. Wounds eventually healed. With itching scars still smarting, she gamely returned to the source of the hurt. Hurt and recovery are major themes here. 'Blue on Blue' a perfect title then. You get the feeling that Sylvie's world is hurtful, hopeful and homely. That she managed to recreate that feeling so far from home is credit to the company she chose to keep for these recordings.

Producer Howe Gelb famously sees rehearsal as 'the enemy'. He gathered a trusty crew of Tucsonan musicians to come play his ruleless game: familiars who recognized the virtues of spontaneity. Gelb kept things suitably understated throughout: there's plenty of space left for nuance, finesse, and the wonder that is Sylvie's breathy delivery. Her ukulele, that 'broken harp', laconically leads, keyboards whisper, a bass occasionally wanders into the spartan room, guitars gently conspire to caress the silence. There are whistles and bells (yup) but they are playfully placed to unsettle any possibility of ennui. The lack of drums and percussion lend a faltering uncertainty which adds to the woozy, indolent charm. And charm is central to the success of this album. There is vulnerability in Sylvie's gentle voice: a quivering quaver that speaks of hard earned heartache.  And what of the songs? Given the preceding trauma, you anticipate bitter darkness: you are gifted sweetness and light. 

Her style is classic Laurel Canyon 70s song-smithery, and Sylvie references that influence with a calm, quiet confidence. It is clear that she has spent a lifetime marinating in music. Her journalistic career has required her to consider and critique the successes and failures of others. Gamekeeper turned poacher then? More like poacher turned sitting duck: a courageous step away from the relative comfort of disinterested editorials, towards the faltering uncertainties of a life as troubadour. And Sylvie surely leads with her chin. You feel the kindred influence of Nico in the loose limbed, quotidian appraisals. You sense the presence of Leonard Cohen in the lyrical conceits, in the way that Sylvie catches and caresses the mundanities with her poets' eye: “ladybugs climb up the blade of grass and balance on top of a dewdrop, swaying in the breeze like they were floating on a fish eye.” You hear Neil Young in most every fragile melody. This does not confer Simmons a copyist. How could a life in music not influence her creativity? What's fascinating is that, because she has left it so late in the day to write these songs, she's too worldly to play the ingénue. She presents herself as she is, not as what she wants to become. And yet this awareness is not a cocky strut. It's a gentle, breezy dance: a composed, rear mirror recognition of where her life has beached her. And that Sylvie chooses to keep dancing, with no shoes on, amid the broken glass and dog shit, renders her tender songs as mischievous, elegant courtship. It's that heady mix of knowing and naivety that makes 'Blue on Blue' simply irresistible.

Lovesong: Blue Rose Code: With Healings of the Deepest Kind

A new album from Blue Rose Code is always something to celebrate. The title 'With Healings of the Deepest Kind' kind of gives the game away. There are fresh wounds, there is healing: gratitude follows. It might be a familiar path but it's trodden with such grace and fortitude that you cannot help but cheer Ross Wilson on. His is a vulnerable heart: music quite clearly his salvation. He may be worried but he's not weary. One minute fragile, the next bold, ever hopeful. He sings of boundaries and horizons: of stumbling and correction, with a coltish enthusiasm that keeps him sticking his chin out, brow furrowed, yet keenly coming back for more.

There is a palpable, almost elemental sense of place: of sea, of sky, of home: the music deeply rooted in its Celtic connections. The Caledonian riffing and loose, but pitch perfect jazz tinged arrangements, tip the hat to Van the Man, but Wilson seems a more compassionate, generous spirit: he gives of himself and we receive him as ours. Folk music then. And this is 'folk' music of the highest order and of the deepest kind.

Lovesong: God Only Knows: Brian Wilson:

A while back I was involved in an interesting discussion with a mate (Tim Patrick) regarding Brian Wilson. Tim recently reminded me of the conversation and pointed me towards the unadorned but beautiful version of 'God Only Knows' that that's hosted at the base of this post. So, Tim's question was: has Brian Wilson's mental state cut short his creativity?

It's that eccentricity that led him to the outlandish notions, melodies, arrangements that others could never conceive. It was Brian's brain, the one that created 'Surf's Up', that also put him in the sandpit. There's a childlike, manic naivety that marks many a creative 'genius'. Mozart anyone? Those ecstatic demons surely take fated talents to different places than the rest of us. Our demons have hiding places, or at least boxes that we create for their storage. Even if Brian could banish his demons they still continue to send postcards. Our angels and demons often wear the same shoes; shoes that make us dance or hobble us horribly; dependent upon... God only knows. Imagine the frustration of soaring, elevated, only to find yourself earthbound the next moment. It's a fascinating subject: The Muse. It inevitably takes as much as it gives; often breaks what it builds; reducing building blocks to... sand. And, from my experience, there are a limited number of bricks; only so much water in the well. 

Lucky for us that Wilson was able to capture his best juice as elixir rater than the diluted stuff that most of us muster. Interesting that genius is often associated with youth. Could it be that as we get older we learn how to control and suppress the demons/angels that previously caused havoc, but were an essential element of our creativity? Perhaps experience teaches us to rein in our creativity because the very randomness of the muse's visitations might render us unstable and vulnerable? Perhaps Wilson has disassociated himself from the challenges of creativity with the simple recognition, and acceptance, that he just wasn't made for these times. Maybe that explains the weeping middle aged men at his concerts: a gaggle of gurning geezers recognizing their under-achievements; all to the glorious soundtrack of the ultimate underachiever. So many questions that, for most of us, will remain unanswered. Brian knows there's an answer, one that's seemingly, frustratingly only just out of his reach. However, if the question is: "What could a 'sane' Brian Wilson have achieved?" there is only one answer...

Lovesong: Sufjan Stevens: America

Sufjan Stevens makes brave and challenging music. 'America' is no exception. No easy listen: it's one for you to decipher yourself. For me it is not dissimilar in intent to Dylan’s recent ‘Murder Most Foul’. Another sprawling montage: another bold auteur in despair at America’s political and cultural decline. This is less specific, more notional than Dylan’s ribald diatribe. It is similarly ambitious and no less lofty. Clocking in at 12 minutes plus you might wonder at the wonder boy’s focus but, after a few listens, the penny drops. I reckon that, after the personal angst that informed his last album, 2017s ‘Carrie and Lowell’, he is now addressing his nation’s mass misery. That is too broad a subject to go into here. Suffice to say that, after the initial hushed hymnal reverence, the beauty and discord that informs the final third of this prolonged piece surely exemplifies the dissonance and distress that I know most of my American friends feel at the disintegration of their country. Their horror and embarrassment often renders them muted. You can’t speak for others, let alone a nation, but Sufjan does his best: “I’m ashamed to admit I no longer believe,” he confesses. “Don’t do to me what you did to America.”

Given the impressionistic vibe what are the abiding impressions? Image is everything but meaning is lost: ‘truth’ rendered spectral. The colour’s turned up but the sound is turned down: we risk becoming detached, disinterested, deafened: immune to the contradictions and deceit that currently colour the ‘everyday’. The message will remain unclear but the revolution will, most certainly, be televised.

In the spirit of the folk singer, Stevens once set out to release an album as a signifier for each State of his nation. He gave up after two ('Illinois' and 'Michigan'), daunted at the prospect. Ironic then that he has released a single to detail the state of his nation. It seems as much informed by uncertainty as certainty. Ain’t that a sign of the times? And the times they are a changing.

Lovesong: Joe Henry: Bloom

So much darkness, and yet so much light.

A release from Joe Henry is always worth celebrating.
Joe has kindly and thoughtfully planned to release his latest album on November 15, the day before my 60th birthday.
I shall be gifting myself the double vinyl.
The rest of you can just send cards...
The background to the recording?
I'll let Joe explain: see below.
Bottom line: I'm always amazed by the human spirit: the letters written by folk in slow mo' plane crashes: the breathless 911 phone calls: thoughts directed outwardly, at beloveds rather than inwards towards 'self'.
Faced with their own mortality folk always speak of 'love'.

The idea that Joe's instinctive reaction upon hearing that he had a life threatening illness was... to make music.
To communicate.
To 'pass it on'.
And love?
As Joe says, he remains "in love with life, even when that life founders and threatens to disappear; lustfully aglow, not in spite of storm but because of one. Come November, then, I will hand this all over —while the sky is bright, and leaves are still turning and descending —the days listing as they grow brisk and shorter."

Fascinating that the first taster from the album, 'Bloom', even in autumn, particularly in autumn, is concerned with regeneration.

I like Joe Henry: how could you not?

COME NOVEMBER

Announcing a new album: The Gospel According To Water

"Come 15 November, I will be releasing a new album —my 15th studio offering as a solo act.
The album is called The Gospel According To Water. It was recorded over two days this past June —and fairly blind-sided me, when I thought I was merely making reference demos of thirteen new songs ahead of forgetting them. All but two of these songs were written between Valentines and Fathers Days; all having flowered from the black earth of recent experience —namely a cancer diagnosis late last fall that left me reeling —though, as well, set into motion many wild blessings and positive shifts in my life, along with an unprecedented songwriting flurry.

With only a handful of friends playing in support, I entered the studio and tore through these songs with determination and joyful abandon, then went home. I had let nothing clutter or distract me from their essential and true heart; and upon waking the morning after, I understood that something significantly more had transpired —that the songs as articulated had sparked an ember that somehow remained bright and alive before me, moving beyond my expectations.

I unexpectedly heard the songs as complete, and vividly so; and knew that the casual circumstances had not limited my expression but in fact liberated me from the cloying aim for posterity that can make weighty any session, and landed me instead in a place both unencumbered by the past and unattached to futures.

Though they have all grown out of darkness, I don’t believe any of these songs themselves to be “dark” in nature, nor about the circumstance that prompted their discovery. In them, I hear the re-accessing of my imagination and its greater invitation; hear deep gratitude, and a compassion toward self that I don’t always possess; an optimism I did not know I’d allowed to flourish.

These recordings are raw and wirey and spare because the songs insisted they be. But I believe them to be as wholly realized —as “produced” as anything I’ve touched, as well as being deeply and fundamentally romantic: in love with life, even when that life founders and threatens to disappear; lustfully aglow, not in spite of storm but because of one.

Come November, then, I will hand this all over —while the sky is bright, and leaves are still turning and descending —the days listing as they grow brisk and shorter.

Just in time for Thanksgiving."

Joe Henry

Pasadena, CA

Lovesong: Elbow: 'Giants of All Sizes': XXL Heart: XXS Hope.

Just in case you miss it: Elbow have a new album out today.
I'm on the second play and, like an ill fitting jigsaw puzzle, it's starting to fall into place, in all of its dislocated, discordant glory. In fact ‘Dislocated Elbow’ just about sums things up.
It is not an easy listen. It speaks of the unsettled days that we've been lumped with by the mismanagement of our hectoring 'leaders': the permeating sense of brow-beaten unease a reflection of that uncertainty. 'Brexit Blues' would be too pat a title. Perhaps 'A Helpless Hymn agin Hubris' would be better. Garvey's downsized world view is delivered with his usual 'everyman' compassion, but an edgy sense of abandonment makes it feel less the usual matey chat. As you press 'replay' (and you will) it feels like you're doing so in an attempt to talk your defeated mate off the ledge.

The cover tells us as much. 

'Together Alone' would be the perfect title, but that's taken. The sense of isolation is palpable throughout. Christ, Garvey's first words nail his estrangement to the cross: "I don't know Jesus anymore."

Not a happy album then; there are no easy anthems, the moments of light make the darkness more acute, but, like Nick Cave's new masterpiece 'Ghosteen', the accumulative effect is devastating.

Lovesong: Boo Hewerdine: Before

When I first started making music with other people, I had influences. All budding musicians do. It's how we find our way. In the mid 80s it seemed that everybody around me wanted to sound like, and be, The Velvet Underground. Beyond the, easy to replicate, slack jawed looseness of the application, it was de rigueur to effect their knowing, louche indifference. Not for me. I wasn't rakish. I wasn't knowing. That much I knew. The sonic template for early days Miracle Mile was a modest combo from the Eastlands. The Bible wore jumpers. Their winsome, bucolic pop was light but lovely. They had fair to middling success in the 80s with a song called 'Graceland' that I couldn't stop listening to. The singer looked as uncomfortable as I felt. And yet... he sang his deceptively simple songs with a detached indifference that was strangely compelling. Like a rabbit in a headlight, he seemed surprised to have an audience, his expression almost begging the attendant not to stare, to avoid eye contact and to keep on moving. Boo was mesmerizing then and, for me, 30 years on, he remains so.

I put his new album on this morning. 'Before'. It is lovely, light and slight: only 32 minutes. As it unfolded I realized what it is about his music that I find so compelling: it is absolutely bereft of cynicism. That's not to say it isn't knowing. Boo's bespectacled stare still falls on his subjects with that familiar wide eyed indifference (that word again). And, as I listened, it struck me: it wasn't 'indifference': it was a child-like wonder of the world. One that doesn't pass judgement. One that doesn't pass on. One that lingers on the little things. No rabbit in headlights then: more like an infant under a quilt with a torch, who has just discovered his toes. Does that make sense? I'm painting Boo as some kind of naive savant and I don't mean to. I know him and recognize him: his quirks, his 'Booness'. Boo is a man that you cannot help but love because of his seeming indifference to all things adult. Again, that sounds patronizing. How can I fix that? Boo once gave me some advice. I was resisting a challenge. "What's the worst that can happen?" he opined. Not the most original counsel. And yet coming from Boo it resonated with an authentic honesty: a duty of... care that stopped me in my tracks and made me disassemble the potentially hackneyed words. And I found truth therein.
Boo's is a world of first things.
Of in-betweens.
Of last things.
"We see true beauty in the last rays of the sun."
Really?
Yes: really!

Boo's eye always seems to settle on the pretty things. He dismantles the wonder of their delicacy in his funny, detached, wise way. And then he puts them back together and calls them 'a song'. And in that way, in his reconstructions of the world, he makes the world his. Makes it fit. Makes it a Booland. And it breaks your heart. Because you want to live there and you can't.

As I listened this morning, before the rigors of the day, I was reminded of nursery rhymes and fairy tales; Arthur Ransome and James Matthew Barrie; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and of my brother and sisters and parents. At that point things got messy and I had to go and make myself a very adult coffee.
I need to stop blathering and play 'Before' again: before I start my grown up work and before the caffeine kicks in. Boo's wide eyed stare rests on the things that matter: the everyday mundane matter that informs our daily lives. The stuff that we mostly pass over. That's why Boo matters to me. Take a minute (or 32) to listen to his new record. It'll make your day different. It will make your day. It'll make you want to live in Booland: a world of wonder where the price of admission is an open heart and an open mind. Be warned: you'll have to check your cynicism in at the door. 

Let's call it 'Graceland'.

Lovesong: Joe Henry: Thrum

The new Joe Henry album 'Thrum' is a beguiling mixture of obtuse lyricism and sombre, sonic beauty. T'aint 'whistle test' catchy but, boy, does its timbre get under your skin.

The vinyl version is spread over 4 luxuriant, syrupy sides: noiseless and quite startling in clarity.
Joe's son Levon is the prime accompanist, offering wonderfully wheezy woodwind, whilst the long

standing rhythm section of bassist David Piltch and drummer Jay Bellerose stitch everything together with a gloriously funereal clatter and... thrum. There's some fine guest guitar from John Smith too.
Thus far it's hard to pick a favorite, although 'The Glorious Dead' and 'River Floor' (see the video below) are just lovely, whilst the subtle orchestrations of 'Keep Us in Song' shuffle and slide, broken backed, yet somehow standing tall.

When I've worked out what Joe's banging on about (“The bride throws off her veil onto the groom. Salvation’ meaning nothing but ‘consumed’”?) this might just rank as my 'Album of the Year' alongside Neil Finn's wondrous 'Out of Silence'. It's certainly my most silent vinyl purchase of 2107.

Instinctive, live and perfectly imperfect is the new black and it suits me just fine.

I like Joe Henry...

Lovesong: Chris Wood: Hollow Point

Thanks to Tom Rose at Reveal Records I am the very happy recipient of Chris Wood's 'Trespasser'/'Lark Descending' on Triple Vinyl. The 'limited edition' made more preciously collectable in the knowledge that many of the 300 pressings were lost in a warehouse fire.
Both albums are wonders of dexterous devilment and heartfelt humour. Chris played The Hat Club last year and awed a select few with his curmudgeonly caustic wit and wayward wisdom. There's an edge to his world weary cynicism that renders his tender moments doubly moving. His feet are firmly set in Olde England but his concerns are very current affairs. This isn't lazy Nationalism but these are songs informed by a history and heritage that is fast fading. He focusses on the things that divide and unite us as a nation. Wood recognises in his sleeve notes that many of his songs are about 'enclosure' in some form or another: "... spiritual, geographical, cultural, legislative, imaginative... they are an invitation to step upon those places we have been lured into believing are no business of ours."

Chris Wood is fiercely protective of our liberties, the oft imperceptible daily whittling of which has now somehow made it illegal for a man to sing a song in a 'public' house without written permission. His irascible and crabby countenance does not make for easy company. But he cares keenly enough to stand tall and tell: Tales of the past that echo resoundingly and relevantly today.

"The law will hang the man or woman

Who steal the goose from off the common
But lets the greater thief go loose
Who steals the common from the goose"

If you want your heart broken have a listen to 'One in a Million' or 'My Darling's Downsized'. If you want your blood chilled with harsh reality look no further than the cold reportage of 'Hollow Point' which somehow manages to be passionately dispassionate.

I love Chris Wood's music.
He has a keen eye, an admirably sharp tongue and a huge heart.
Long may he give a shit.

Lovesong: The Milk Carton Kids: Memphis

Catching up slowly here...
I'm still awaiting delivery of their new album 'Michigan' but I've just received my vinyl copy of The Milk Carton Kid's 2012 release, 'The Ash & Clay'.
It's a beautiful uncluttered thing, shimming with quiet poetry, deft touch and an intimacy of close harmony that brings to mind both Simon and Garfunkel and The Everly Brothers. Indeed there's a subtle tipping of the hat to Paul Simon's 'Graceland' in the closing song 'Memphis':

"This is ain't a trip with my son, there's no guitar shines in the sun, those days are gone, may new ones come before it's all just a museum . . . Graceland is a ghost town tonight, I guess it's been a long decline, God bless the souls that shook up mine"

These are songs to wallow in, for beyond the cool veneer is a worldweary wisdom that beckons, embraces and binds; taps into your heart and mind and refuses to leave.

The swing sets are empty like dirt turned the dark of the night
the center of this town it used to whirl in the glow of twilight
it might look like God's away with all the trouble these days
we'll come home before the girls are grown
we're coming home tonightWhat, oh, have we done to run this country into such a sight
stolen from our brothers like we couldn't find a fair enough fight
you wait on promise you will say
won't forsake the ash and clay
let's come home before the girls are grown
let's come home to fight

And to add gravity to the the loving luster we have liner notes from Joe Henry who concludes:

"For within these songs is a man himself in motion –a traveler who dances in silent, halting circles. And what he does is quietly bear witness like a weathervane, to the carnival of souls by the wayside, his eyes cornered but his face always pointing forward, his voice in our heads. He moves through love but is alone; laughs at the wreckage, weeps with lust; throws and sweeps confetti, stands at cold gravesides; raises a hand in promise, then picks your pocket and slips quietly back across the border. He slides outside the law, bound by honor and duty, the pure product of a mad country working with all its heart at fevered cross-purposes.
In the end it is mercy he is after, the character in this play—the kind of mercy that attends grace when truly living in spite of the inevitable, when singing the unspeakable to the unlistening. ≈  And from Hiroshima to Graceland, this character knows that the whole of human foolishness must be witnessed, loved, and forgiven for that mercy to be ratified. 
Like Jesus and Harpo Marx, he does this for us all."

I like Joe...
I love The Milk Carton Kids.

Lovesong: Joe Henry — The Mystery and Adventure of Life and Songwriting

'Mystery' is the word... I write to discover... The poem has an intelligence that the poet doesn't have.'

I'd encourage all songwriters and lovers of song to listen to this wonderful interview. He manages to demystify the magical mysteries of the craft without breaking the spell. He also totes the challenges of opening your heart to others.
'If you exorcise your demons your devils will leave too.'
I'm thralled by Joe's worldly wisdom.
A master of words, a sculptor of sound and a huge hearted hero... and I don't do 'heroes' but... I like Joe Henry​:

Lovesong: Bonnie Prince Billie: After I Made Love to You

No words, just listen.
Oh, and there's fireworks too...

Lovesong: Boo Hewerdine: Funny Bones

'What's a clown when there's no-one around?
There's no joy in laughing on your own
Please forgive me for my funny bones'

Music just seeps out of some folk.
This song, I believe, just made it as a 'B' side.
Are there still such things as 'B' sides?
Are there such things as 'funny bones'.
Boo is no genius.
Boo is not groundbreakingly original.
He is heartbreakingly musical and admirably hard working.
He could just be the most talented 'songwriter' in the UK.
Boo's latest release 'My Name in Brackets' is a retrospective.
Hardly a 'Best Of' because it's only a single CD.

You'd need a box set to do Boo's back catalogue justice.
Sorry to gush but, if you aren't aware of Boo 'My Name in Brackets' would be a good place to start.
As would this song.
Music just seeps out of some folk...
A 'B' side.
Hilarious!

Lovesong: Gramercy Arms: Beautiful Disguise

I'm loving this.

Gramercy Arms are a Supergroup, a collaborative that's masterminded by songwriter/producer Dave Derby (left).

Their 2nd album is 'The Seasons of Love' and features a magnificently motley crew; the likes of Lloyd Cole, Joan Wasser (Joan As Police Woman), Tanya Donelly (Belly, Throwing Muses), Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), Kendall Meade (Sparklehorse), Claudia Gonson (Magnetic Fields), Doug Gillard (Guided By Voices), Erin Moran (A Girl Called Eddy), Renee LoBue (Elk City), Kay Hanley (Letters To Cleo) and others.

The new single from the album 'Beautiful Disguise' features Lloyd Cole and Joan Wasser, and comes with a gem of a video, replete with sonorous shadows and moody menace.

The album will be the soundtrack to my weekend.

You?

Lovesong: Bruce Springsteen: Hunter of the Invisible Game

I remember during that 3 year gap between 1975's 'Born to Run' and the release in 1978 of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' that a few high profile Directors were courting Bruce. He was going to be the new Pacino. Thank God that he resisted. Bowie and Sting proved that it's best to stick at what you're best at… the public are pretty unforgiving when it comes to mediocrity.
See also Eric Cantona...
But this short film/promo for 'Hunter of the Invisible Game' is excellent; it shows Bruce in the unflinching light of character actor.
No 'vanity project' this.
Bruce looks knackered!
The best song on 'High Hopes' (by a mile) now has some haunting visuals.
I'm not sure what it's all about but it sure is beguiling...

Lovesong: Nick Drake

It's Nick Drake's birthday today.
He would have been 66.
I love this photo of him.
You can see why Brad Pitt wanted to play him in the Hollywood take on his life.
I'm glad that particular project remains 'on hold'.
I'm always saddened and humbled by his music...

Why not join me and have a Nick Drake day?
Play all of his albums in order.
Could be the best 90 minutes (plus injury time) of the weekend.

Lovesong: Joe Henry: Sign

'Invisible Hour' is brilliant, beguiling, beautiful.
Evidence: A sure Sign of greatness and compassion...

And then see this intimate live performance for KEXP:

Lovesong: Cherry Ghost: Herd Runners

Sods law.
A year of fairly routine releases and then, just as I'm about to unleash my latest masterwork upon an unsuspecting public and claim my rightful place in the pantheon of pop, a whole glut of gloriousness hits the airwaves to keep your hearts from me.
Sorry if that sounds a bit DLT but…

Upbeat and brow beaten are usually oil and water.
Not here: Simon Aldred raises the bar; he has shaken and stirred a divine cocktail of love and longing and yet it all sounds intoxicatingly uplifting.
It's the aural equivalent of wearing your favorite comfy winter sweater to a BBQ; this album could become the sound of the summer for me.
Mojitos and misery anyone?