Leathan Milne is a songwriter from Vancouver, who makes an intimate yet rich brand of folk. Drawing from the likes of Damien Jurado and Gregory Alan Isakov, Milne’s sound combines emotive delicacy with lush string arrangements so that the entire package is rooted in an atmospheric and moving style.
His latest album, There Is The Ground Beneath Us, utilises this to explore some pretty deep things. Specifically, death, though perhaps not in the way we might expect. Rather than take the route of ultra-dark melancholia, the record instead uses the constant shadow of mortality as a counterweight to life itself, the shade allowing the bright and beauty to become all the more conspicuous. As Milne explains:
“Although I don’t think of it as a dark record, lots of the songs have an underlying theme of death and the passage of time. It wasn’t something that I intentionally set out to explore, but as I looked back on the writing it was obviously something that my subconscious needed to scrutinize.”
Nowhere on the record is this more apparent than ‘Now I Say Goodnight’, a song built almost entirely out of a sense of loss that never explicitly gives anything by way of context or explanation. Instead, we have Milne’s gentle vocals meandering through a soft yet stirring arrangement, the breaks between verses populated by sweeping and mournful strings which paint loss in a slightly different light. Rather than a presence turned absence, or brief, sudden cessation, here the concept is treated more as a journey, a movement from one state to the next. And, so long as the other side remains a complete mystery, then why not imagine it as a positive one?
“Remember how it all seemed so clever?
Escape to forever after
you call me just to say howdy.
Funny how loudly the little things speak
and all that I can say is tossed and turned to clay.
I heard there’s something on the other side,
now I say goodnight.”
Joined by a group of collaborators—Craig Aalders (acoustic guitar), Owen Connell (pump organ), Alex Hauka and Devon Kroeger (both vocals)—Milne performed a live version of the song for a brand new video by Adrian St. Louis. We’re delighted to be able to share it below:
There Is The Ground Beneath Us is out now and you can buy it from the Leathan Milne Bandcamp page.