Portland‘s Jeffrey Silverstein has made a name for himself over the last few years with his distinctive brand of meditative and wandering folk music. Last year’s You Become the Mountain, released on Arrowhawk Records, captured his style perfectly, exploring both the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest that Silverstein calls home and the vast intangible landscapes that exist inside of us. “[You Become the Mountain is] a record built on patience and restraint,” we described in our review, “drawing on both the unpretentious emotion of traditional folk and the mind-wandering spiritualism of something altogether more experimental.”
Earlier this month, Jeffrey Silverstein returned with a new EP, Torii Gates, again released with Arrowhawk. Named after the structures in Shinto shrines which mark the boundary between the earthly and the sacred, the EP follows its predecessors in treading the line between the natural and the supernatural. In this manner, it itself becomes a gateway between the knowable world we inhabit and the one beyond the physical realm.
As if to reinforce this point, opener ‘Caught Behind the Hours’ begins with a recording about out-of-body experiences. “Well, what happens is that you as an individual suddenly find yourself for one reason or another apart from your physical body,” the narrator says, a clear indication Torii Gates has no intention of remaining tethered to the corporeal. “And yet you can think, you can be, you can act. But your physical body is in some other location—it may be only two inches away or 2,000 miles away.”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=71844174 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3672708446]
Though released under his own name, the EP follows previous Jeffrey Silverstein records in being far from a solo venture. Joined once more by Barry Walker Jr. on pedal-steel, Alex Chapman on bass and Ryan Oxford on production, Silverstein is able to craft rich and enveloping soundscapes that offer space for contemplation and capture big feelings with relatively few words. He describes the record as “a celebration of the unknown, small joys and learning to be comfortable with transition,” and a gentle joyousness threads through the probing prismed guitars and warm tape hiss, the soft sunbeam glow of Walker Jr.’s pedal steel.
The first track to feature vocals, ‘River Running By’ is inspired by the concept of ‘blue mind’. Coined by marine biologist Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, the term refers to the soothing meditative state experienced when on or near water. A sense of perspective and clarity in opposition to the ‘red mind’ of overstimulation and anxiety of much of contemporary life. In an essay for Talkhouse, Silverstein describes how he set out to capture in song the feeling of long slow days spent on the banks of the Washougal, Lewis and Columbia rivers. “I had nowhere to be, nothing to do, so I just sat,” he explains. “Despite the world around me feeling paused, I found immense comfort in the steady movement and momentum of the water.”
I was a river, running by
Living life, in four-four time
So many things, I couldn’t know
Caught a fish, but I let it go
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=71844174 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1777004988]
This sentiment feels like a mission statement for much of Silverstein’s music. It’s a haven, a balm, both deeply inquisitive and reassuringly comforting. A lesson in quietening one’s movements in order to appreciate the worlds that surround us. Stillness need not necessarily equate to stagnation. There is confidence and calm to be found in the motion all around.
Torii Gates is out now via Arrowhawk Records. Get it on cassette and digitally from the Jeffrey Silverstein Bandcamp page.
