Sawtooth are a folktronica band from Olympia, Washington, who you might recognise from their track with Oh, Rose for our benefit compilation Quiet, Constant Friends. They put out an album last December entitled Post-Americana, a record dedicated to “everyone who has ever thought about hurtin’ themselves over now seemingly silly feelings”.
According to Wikipedia, Americana is “an amalgam of American folk music formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the musical ethos of the United States”. It might then be fair to expect Post-Americana to be a bit further down river from said confluence, although quite how far is up for debate. ‘Dead Dog Eyes’ opens with an off-kilter sound, folk music amped up with psychedelica and blues to reach something at once celebratory and weird. “They came in through the front door,” he sings. “They came in with dying dog eyes”, ensuring the strange vibe extends to their lyrics. ‘Memorial Day Crossroad Blues’ is slower and folkier still, the arrangements serving up a dose of warm dusty nostalgia through which rises the repeated and rather desperate refrain of “at the crossroads!” ‘The River Because’ is skippy and jovial and odd, like the words of a mountain hermit so long removed from civilisation that they no longer care about how they look in the eyes of others.
“I will reason with your reason
I will eat my slice of cake
but you will find me at my best
when we’re swimming
in the river because
when we’re swimming
in the river because”
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Without wishing to exaggerate the oddness, the peculiar-but-cordial analogy holds through much of the record. Should ‘Please Excuse Me (4th Ave Blues)’ be a traditional Americana song, it would most likely have existed as embittered and tortured and sad, a man-tones-down-masculinity-to-reinforce-it kind of deal where the narrator baths in his heroic melodrama. But here, while the thoughts are sincere and undoubtedly wistful, the lyrics circumnavigate macho schmaltz with offbeat deftness (just listen to the opening: “and please excuse me / for never for never for never for never / writing you that letter”). ‘Leave Me Be’ shows a quiet and removed side, while ‘Rendezvous On North Rodger Road’ is their travelling number, a twee pop version of a communal folk song which incites an American dream of a different variety, where simple pleasures are all you need. This is built upon with ‘Life is a Book’, a song which feels like a neat summation of Sawtooth’s ideology:
“You can wear my glasses if you want
But you will never see just as me
You can watch these words flow like slow molasses
and hopefully you’ll catch them as I speak
so untie your shoes sit down and get real high
cause you’ve been dancing in the rain
tryin to feel something other than time
and your singing with the stereo
feelin bigger
bigger than time”
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The blues in ‘Florida Blues’ are literal, a moody wordless agitation, the sort of song that goes looking for its enemies in poorly-lit dive bars too late at night, while ‘I Don’t Need No One To Win My Freedom’ sees the return of upbeat, VanGaalenian folk. ‘Empathy/Apathy’ is a slow-burning imploration that you choose feeling and courage over indifference and excuses. “Don’t let your empathy / turn into apathy,” he sings, again resisting the cool cynicism of many Americana heroes. “Don’t let yourself be so sold / well we’ve all been there before.” ‘Kindness Comes’ emerges from this crescendo, level and sombre, the sober next-day insistence that everything said was true, that these words mean more than a good time.
“Kindness comes so easily
from the ones who challenge existence”
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Maybe Post-Americana isn’t further down the Americana stream at all, but rather sailing along a similar-but-strange river in some parallel universe, where folk tropes are easily broken or else don’t even exist. You can buy it now from the Sawtooth Bandcamp page.