“Think Alan Lomax recording a supergroup made up of Sufjan Stevens and The Books, with stylistic nods to North Carolina’s Sarah Louise and fellow Bennington graduates Mountain Man.” That’s how the bio of Asheville-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter Ethan Woods describes his sound on new record, Burnout. The latest release from Whatever’s Clever, the record elevates its earnest folk sound with psych and pop flourishes, and most importantly maintains a decidely porous border with the surrounding environment. Because Burnout was tracked outdoors, and the North Carolinian summer seeps into its textures, all singing birds and stridulating insects, howling dogs and crowing roosters and thunder which cracks the warm air.
This ambience is apparent on latest single ‘Chirin’s Bell’, but the song also shows the work of Ethan Woods to be far more than a study of place. The track is partly inspired by Masami Hata’s 1979 animation Ringing Bell, where a curious little lamb gets separated from his herd and stumbles upon a wolf. Despite a taste for sheep, the wolf takes Chirin under its wing, training him in the ways of a predator, and over several years transforms the lamb from a helpless youngster into something strong and ruthless. When Chirin eventually returns to his flock, it is as a hunter alongside his adopted parent, his identity now in complete opposition to that with with he left.
Ethan Woods repurposes such a transformation into an Appalachian cowboy ballad, charting a loss of innocence as hooves become claws, pining for the truth even while life forces teeth to be bared. “For me, this song is about the struggles to remain true to yourself, your art, and your community when faced with the transformative power of the desires to earn clout, wealth, and notoriety,” Woods explains. “I think of it as a shout-out to all the artists out there who struggle with marketing themselves, who try to keep their soul from being crushed, who know the paradoxes of trying to market one’s self authentically.”
