“No One Knows That You’re Lost is an album inspired by the Norwegian coast and a human interior, by tight itching doubts and wide open spaces. Here, fragility, strength and beauty become one and the same, parts of a landscape in constant flux yet remaining fundamentally unchanged”

Tina very kindly agreed to write a guest post for our ‘Lit Links‘ series (part of the Quiet, Constant Friends project), where artists and writers create a playlist of songs based around a book of their choice. Arm yourself with headphones and have a read below.

Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding
by Tina Refsnes

I’ve never felt comfortable with answering questions that ask for «the best» or «your all time favourite» as I just feel there’s too much good and different material in the world to hold them up against each other like that. So, I’ll say that one of my favourite books that I enjoyed immensely reading is one called The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. It’s set in an American College and with baseball as the back-drop, and it’s one of those slow books with great meaning but without the drama. It deals with the big hopes that young people usually have to life, with self doubt in performance, and with the social difficulties or shyness that young people sometimes struggle with. But, in a very down to earth way since, at least the main character, is so un-academic. I also imagined this suburban North-American setting for it: Long, wide streets with tall leaf trees on both sides of it. Really big and old campus buildings, and maybe since the characters were so alone in their minds I kept picturing everything as with never that many people around.

Tracklisting:

1. Jenny Come Home- Andy Shauf
   2. Gather, Form and Fly – Megafaun
   3. Own Side – Caitlin Rose
   4. Casimir Pulaski Day – Sufjan Stevens
   5. Easy – Laura Marling
   6. Blue Train – Emmy Lou Harris, Linds Ronstadt and Dolly Parton
   7. Out of the Woodwork – Courtney Barnett
   8. Big Black Road – Thousands
   9. That Knot Unties? – David Karsten Daniels
   10. Mr. Rodriguez – Rayland Baxter
   11. We Are Fine – Sharon Van Etten
   12. Horizons – The Staves
   13. Archie, Marry Me – Alvvays
   14. Friends – 22-20s
   15. Poison Oak – Bright Eyes

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As always with Van Etten, the EP is chock full of lyrics which speak of emotions in a straight, unashamed way. Like late-night, life-affirming conversations with loved ones, Van Etten’s writing manages to cut out all the junk, the false statements and vain declarations and grey lies which constitute the peculiar charade of Real Life. What results is heartfelt, brave and benevolent, not exactly an answer but a reassuring hand to hold while you’re working on the question. As she sings on the title track:

“When dreams grew black
I didn’t want to see the light
Cross through hell in snow
Dreams were gone within yourself
Taught me to know what it’s like

Don’t shout it, stay
I don’t want to let you down
Plead your cause
I don’t want to let you down”

You can stream the first two songs right now:

I Don’t Want To Let You Down will be released on the 9th June via Jagjaguwar. You can pre-order it now.

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“The songs were better. The ideas were grander. The subject matter weirder. The narrators more honest and articulate. The frontman more compelling. The potential greater. Amateur Love were and remain the best band I have ever seen.”

Indeed, Justin Vernon re-released the Amateur Love record It’s All Aquatic on his label Chigliak, and in his description of the album he writes about Scott and himself occupying the Eau Claire scene and admiring one another’s music. “It was obvious to both of us, however,” he says, “who the better writer was.”

For whatever reason, Scott did not experience the same success that was bestowed on Vernon and the others. While Bon Iver, Megafaun, Peter Wolf Crier and Field Report have all achieved some degree of exposure and acclaim, things did not work out for Scott:

“Josh watched it all from Chicago and did nothing. Everyone tried to encourage him… He had opportunities for record deals. He had another supergroup of who’s-who indie rock royalty assembled for him… He got spooked again and went underground.”

You can read the rest of Porterfield’s piece here (and I suggest you do. It’s powerful, candid and sincere) but the important part is the conclusion that Scott wrote and recorded an album as Aero Flynn. While, as ever in life, things have not gone swimmingly since, Porterfield is convinced that the record is important:

“I believe that this record, this long-awaited record, is quite seriously a life-or-death record. Josh had to make it to stay alive. And it must be heard in the context of deferred health, deferred relationships, deferred dreams, deferred healing. As spit in the fucking face of the symptoms of disease, like rot and destruction and apathy and cynicism.”

This is something I feel strongly about. Many of the attempts to conquer the resulting apathy/cynicism in art come off as frilly and saccharine and vapid, avalanches of pure, distilled sincerity that are nothing more than irony in a different guise, a well cloaked nudge in the ribs (see: some of the Alt Lit guys). A “spit in the fucking face” sounds clear. If Aero Flynn sees Scott stand his ground and face things head on, this could be one special record.

The self-titled album will be released on the 10th March by Ooh La La Records. You can download ‘Dk/Pi’ now via the Aero Flynn website.

EDIT: You can now read our review of Aero Flynn here.

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