STAFF PIX 10/10: 2010S FOLK
Happy fall y’all! It’s a folk fall (and winter, and spring, and summer…) and we’re here to celebrate it!
“SIZE OF THE MOON” BY PINEGROVE
Pinegrove has a knack of singing about every feeling that I can’t seem to put to paper, feelings that linger in the space of my cluttered notes app and never see the light of day. Their 2015 track, “Size of the moon,” is exactly that, a heartbreakingly honest declaration of the untraceable anxiety that seems to transcend space and time. The song is indecisive, constantly switching between optimism for the future and the struggle to get past the present. This is reflective in the construction of the song itself as each verse and chorus builds to a belt before crumbling back into shaky confessions. Evan, Pinegrove’s singer songwriter, balances this with his optimistic wishes for the future and recognition of the past. He writes about the present like an out-of-body space that he can’t seem to navigate. Its composition is simple; the verses include just Evan and an acoustic guitar while the choruses include minimal drums, a banjo, and a bass guitar. “Size of the moon” is beautifully stripped back, featuring Evan’s vocals alone as he steers himself towards a future of finally “feelin’ alright.” In its swelling close, the track features one of my favorite verses of recent time, “I wanna visit the future and dance in a field of light/ I don’t know what I’m afraid of/ But I’m afraid/ One day it will all fall away.” — Sophie Parrish
“Festus, I Am Not Out of My Mind” by Half-Handed Cloud
This is an ode to my childhood – Half-Handed Cloud is the the project of John Ringhofer, an American musician who is currently based in Finland. My dad has a talent for finding cool and interesting friends, and he managed to snag John Ringhofer at a summer camp when they were in their teens. My dad says they used to record R.E.M. covers together when they were young. “Festus, I Am Not Out of My Mind” comes from the album Flying Scroll Flight Control, a spacey, mysterious body of music. This particular track is only forty six seconds long, and comes from the book of Acts in the Bible. In this certain chapter, the Apostle Paul is being tried for insanity by the Roman Governor Festus for his testimony about the resurrection of Christ. John Ringhofer does a beautiful job of turning Biblical stories into songs that match the mysticism that they are sometimes associated with, and giving the cast of characters a new medium to reside in. Though I have only recently been reminded of the joys of Half-Handed Cloud, each and every song carries fuzzy memories of visiting Berkeley, California with my family to visit John and other friends in the early 2010s. I have him to thank for my introduction to Harry Nilsson at the ripe age of six. — Ana Achata
“Sleeping Ute” BY Grizzly Bear
I found God through Grizzly Bear. There is a sort of tangible divine spirit ingrained within Grizzly Bear’s “Sleeping Ute.” It’s so tactile, I feel like I can grab it with my hands and mold it like play-dough. The band has a tendency to elegantly pull you inside of their gnarled, wooden dreamscapes, with (a lot of) help from Daniel Rossen’s punchy electric guitar, one that permeates each song on their fifth album, Shields, The band’s most vibrant and dynamic work. “Sleeping Ute” feels like some sort of insane religious absurdist daydream, one that simulates an endless sprint towards something higher, penetrated sonically by light and dirt, surrounded by apparitions that compel you forward. I’m not sure if this is the vibe Grizzly Bear intended for, but there is a sense of holiness on this record, as if compelled by some formless force that surrounds us. It’s like the feeling of strong wind across your body on a crispy day, wind that blasts your body so hard you feel yourself lifting up for half a second. Half a second, where your body is out of your control and the divine force of nature controls your fate for just a moment. That moment lasts for the entire four minutes and thirty five seconds of “Sleeping Ute.” At first it’s terrifying and the gust of wind throws you and violates you and you are confused and scared. But eventually you realize you can’t control anything, and over you a wave of simple, elegant calm rolls over, contemplating this uncontrollable sacred force, and you now “know no other way, than straight on out the door” . “Sleeping Ute” is powerful and rough, but ends with simplicity and grace, as if entering some sort of serene final expanse, where you are able to release all of the knots that have been tied to you for as long as you’ve lived. — Wyatt Sardy
“Late Dawn” by Lomelda
The Sun is still nowhere to be seen. Lomelda waits in the pitch dark of the world thinking “If I lose my breath by the morning, please carry the tune/ Of the dying song I used to sing in the throes of June.” Or perhaps she’s with a friend or lover who tries to ease her nerves. She won’t have it: “Don’t tell me that I’m being morbid. I know it will be soon.” It’s death more than sunrise that she’s anticipating. But death might be real to her, not just some abstraction — “‘Cause I could feel my lungs—/ They were failing at that beautiful view.” Breathtaking awe and last breath in one fell swoop. “The sun disappeared behind that tree line/ and you promised it would rise,” she pleads. “Now I’m not saying you were lying/ But I don’t think you were right,” says the cynicist to her partner’s optimism—maybe hope is false. She releases her fear in delicate “awhooo”s like an owl cooing for a response in the unlit forest. But maybe death is a kind of peace: “If I never really become anybody/ At least when you see that I’m just a lifeless body/ Maybe eternity will mean something new.” She asks herself if she can go on living four times: “Can we wait for the sun? For the sun?” Then she lets out an “awhoo” with all of the weight of her delicate existence. The peremptory elegy is over and the last note of her guitar feels like a bit of light on the horizon. Lomelda and James Baldwin expressed the same truth: “Life is tragic simply because the earth turns, and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.” — Christian Jones
“Mountain’r Lower” by Jessica Pratt
It’s a crisp autumn afternoon, a bit overcast, and I am walking through Appalachian trails in my Ugg boots when I hear the distant echo of a dissonant harmony. I am not alone. I listen for the folklore scored by the hum of Jessica Pratt’s “Mountain’r Lower.” Her mystical voice over fuzzy plucking guitar, floats through the trees. It’s the feeling of the river flowing between your fingers while the wind rustles the leaves. A divine brush with nature. “Heavy heart flame from the bed that rains for the raiders coming down when the game spun round. / Keep me darling in your darkest hours like a mother made of stone / He sings low for the long pour there’s a hundred mighty men or more.” A woman awaits her lover, with a myth-like reverence, while images of light and darkness float across her mind, fielding her worries of the mysterious man that never comes home. “And his eyes were so fixed on light, so fixed on the light / That right hand guided him too low, guided him down home.” He also wanders through these woods, where there’s “nowhere to hide” while she is left wondering “If he comes home, home, home and does wrong, wrong wrong.” The leaves rustle, the river runs, the air is crisp, he wanders, she waits and I listen. — Avery Piazza