In a recent interview, we asked North Carolinan folk musician Sarah Louise to name five acts that ours readers should hear. One of her suggestions was Wes Tirey, a familiar name around here – we have already reviewed his albums, collaborations and indeed even chatted with him too. Wes has since put out the tape Louise mentioned on Columbus label Cabin Floor Esoterica.

‘Old Ohio Blues’ starts the release as it means to go on, a slow, sad folk song surrounded by atmospheric drone which creeps and clings like an oneiric fog. A similar technique is employed across the remaining songs, the combination of traditional folk and electronic effects producing a sound that is disconcerting and alluring, Tirey’s vocals cutting through the mist like an unknown narrator, doomed to repeat his regrets. ‘Ballad of the Black Hills Woman’ plays like the late night echoes of a man who has outlived his company, while ‘The Body’s Better’ tells of someone so indebted to their vices that they have given up pretending otherwise. ‘Akhnilo Blues’ reduces the ambient levels in favour of stark guitar and ‘Mexican Blanket’ offers an evocative instrumental interlude, the ever-present reverb creating a strange sense that the song is a recording of the song, a memory that has not lost its lustre. Closer ‘Buffalo Bones’ is a current favourite, combining macabre dream imagery with a tender beauty, creating a song that’s unsettling and striking and would please any of the past masters.

“And I dream the trees were singing
and I dream the river was on fire
and I dream rattlesnakes were upon me,
and my name was cursed for all time.
And I dream the sky had teeth
and I dream of buffalo bones
and I dream the moon was bleeding
and I dream my body was stone.
And I dream of your lily white hands
and I dream of the flowers on your dress
and I dream wild horses surround you
and I dream your stomach grew.”

The tape is packed with so many vivid images that the bigger picture becomes indistinct, like the recollections of a man so old and tired that the border between reality and fantasy has become porous. Gripped by a fever dream, he is desperate and delirious but determined to say what needs to be said before time runs out on him.

All this is a way of saying that Journeyer/Forward, Melancholy Dream is one of Tirey’s best yet. The release is available as a great little cassette via Cabin Floor Esoterica (see below). While you are there, why not dig into the Cabin Floor back catalogue? But consider yourself warned: it can eat up your day pretty quick.

The post Wes Tirey – Journeyer/Forward, Melancholy Dream appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We featured Sarah Louise late last year, a brief paragraph that described her American primitive album Field Guide as “a lost disc from Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music” and promised a new year release on Scissor Tail Records. Well I’m pleased to say that the release is upon us. Part of the Scissor Tail Editions series (which includes the Tirey/Weathers split we also covered), Field Guide has been packaged as a quite beautiful cassette with artwork by Dylan Aycock.

As you can guess from the title and artwork, Field Guide is inspired by the natural world, especially the Black Mountains of North Carolina where Louise resides. While every song is instrumental, the title provides clues as to the context of the pieces, framing each track within a specific time or place or situation. The title track is vivid and rich, swirling around the listener and blossoming with tiny details so that there is something wherever which way you turn. ‘Dog Improv’ casts the listener as a canine explorer rooting through the undergrowth, the tempo changing on a whim to follow scent trails or other curiosities, while ‘Waterways’ adopts a steady background rhythm upon which playful picking becomes the rippling surface. ‘Late Summer Seed Collection’ is radiant and breezy and conjures the smell of an earth warmed by the sun, the small intricacies hidden within the flow mimicking the morphological complexity of the seeds themselves.

Musical comparisons will undoubtedly see you looking backwards, but to use the term ‘old’ in describing this album would not quite grasp the sensation experienced while listening. Instead it seems more apt to say Field Guide exists outside of time as we generally consider it. Listen to John Fahey or Matokie Slaughter or Blind Willie McTell and there is a commonality running through the music that seems to withstand the changeable patterns and trends that are adopted and cast aside across the years. There seems to be an unchanging element at its core, a force defeated by stylistic fads in genres such as pop and rock. Both in sound and theme, Louise manages to circumvent the skin-deep and decidedly human introspection that occupies most genres in favour of something larger and wider, resonating on a deeper level. The songs speak of an association with nature that makes everything else appear incidental, a connection that humanity has attempted to sever for millennia without ever quite succeeding. In this way the album is both sad and joyous, a reminder of all we have missed and all there is left to experience, the terrifying, heartbreaking and glorious comfort that we, as humans, are an oh-so-small part of an oh-so-wonderful world.

We are delighted to have an exclusive stream of the album that will be available up until the release date. Grab a tape or digital download from Scissor Tail Records.

So make sure you pick up a tape or download the album!

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