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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The album opens with ‘Divided By Animal’ which sets the tone for the album, a finger-picked paean to a simpler life and Weaver’s organic personal philosophy. It’s full of lines like “Whatever happens that’s all I ever want“ and ”Not rich by what I own but rich by what I let go.“ The second track, ‘Rambling Bones,’ follows a similar thread, opening with:

”The hills look like different kinds of fur in the morning
dirty wool-torn clouds blowing through the chinks in my day
neck-deep in the brambles holding pieces of the beast
bring the dogs to the river where the sea used to be.“

The song is the story of a wandering man, of a man who’s life is governed not by the economy or advertising agencies but by the rhythms of the natural world, a man ”out there looking for the last blank space on the map“. It reminded me strongly of a novel I read recently, The Road Home by Jim Harrison, and one character in particular (named Nelse) who wanders around America, living off the land and spending his days doing surveys of the local wildlife. Lots of Weaver’s lyrics seem incredibly relevant to the book, even when he isn’t describing the natural world. The line ”Freckles on her shoulders like birds on a deer / there’s nothing she won’t tell you after two sips of beer“ is especially apt as the only thing that can rival birds and plants for Nelse’s attention is the influence of a certain young woman.

The fourth track, ‘Dear Brown Earth’, is another stand-out, beginning with the ambient chattering of birds and the line ”Some days I go waking with the dog just to go where a dog wants to go.“ The song sounds like a frosty morning, you can almost see the watery light falling through gathering clouds and feel winter on the wind as dry browns leaves blow in drifts. ‘Low Ride’, the final track, is perhaps the best of all. An epic of over eight minutes, it has a wonderfully gentle and reflective cadence, flickering with firelight and the warmth of loved ones. It’s really, really beautiful and one of my favourite songs of the year so far.

”For you I’d burn a house down
I’d break a star from the sky
snow in the snow oaks
come sit by the fire
we’ll talk about the old days
and whittle out the night
get dizzy in the treetops
while the coyotes cry“

To support the new album, Weaver is embarking on a national bicycle tour entitled It’s All the River, in which he will perform at farms, bookstores, bicycle shops and small music venues. The tour will see him follow the course of the Mississippi, from Minneapolis to New Orleans. He aims to use volunteer projects (such as planting native species, prairie restorations and river cleanups), along with songs and poetry to connect audiences to the river and surrounding land. Check the list of tour dates if you’re interested in catching a show,

I’ll leave you with some words from the man himself, taken from his micro-site set up by Banjo Brothers:

“I Would Rather Be a Buffalo came from the thin places, in the forests I wander and the cities I ride. On most days there is a few feet of space between this world and the spirits, the places where I found I Would Rather Be a Buffalo were worn down to an inch or less. I’m willing to risk sentimentality or an over sincere jest to say these things, to preserve the rivers and box canyons, the needlework light in the tall pines, and the blank spaces on the map for wolves, bears and my heart to wander.”

You can buy I Would Rather Be a Buffalo via Hymie’s Records.

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Any project that aims to reconcile art, science and nature will be a project that attempts to capture as big a picture as possible. Rob St. John (who we recently featured as part of Bastard Mountain) is doing just that. As part of the Fixing Broken Rivers project by Thames 21, he is working in and around the East London area, recording what he finds via photographs, field recordings and written word. He recently walked the length of the River Lea in East London, taking field recordings as he went. The result was a collection of clips that capture the life along the river: people chatting, boats passing, aeroplanes flying overhead as swans land in the water. We are probably pushing our remit as a music blog in writing about this, but it makes for an oddly entrancing listen.

Add in the photographs and you begin to get a comprehensive view of the area, my foretold ‘big picture.’ The recording of everyday things, of life, come alive and conjure a newfound sense of wonder in what would normally be considered mundane. Rob St. John proves there is value in the marriage of science and art, and there is no reason why these ideas can’t be taken further. If their are any super-wealthy philanthropists out there whose fortunes are burning a hole in their pockets, might I suggest some grant-based movement that expands on this form, global projects utilising sounds and music and photgraphs, film and literature and oral history? I’m first in line.

The final result will be released sometime in 2015 as sound, photography and writing. Keep an eye on the Rob St. John Twitter page for updates.

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Incredibly, Ross plays each of the 20+ instruments himself and also designed and created the beautiful artwork. Each tile on the cover holds a paper-cut image of one of sixteen Canadian animals, and along with the songs, Ross intends for them to “represent the ten provinces, three territories and three oceans that reside within these fragile Canadian habitats.” Ross says that his aim was to marry “art, music and design for the greater social good.”

If you visit the Peirson Soundcloud page, you can see each tile in more detail. What’s really cool about this is that each tile has some information on the species of animal it depicts, including its common name, its binomial name and its conservation status in Canada. All of the information was obtained from COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) so it’s all legit and scientifically accurate. So why not listen to the album and learn a little about each animal as you go? Did you know that the burrowing owl, Atlantic salmon and beluga whale are all classified as endangered? Or that species such as the harlequin duck and polar bear are now classed as requiring special concern?

You can even play the fun game of trying to match the tile to the song. For example, there is a repeated line in the track ‘The Year That Winter Never Came’ which goes, “Like the sun shining through the rain, a message from the lonesome whooping crane“, and if you look up the track on the , the art for the track features (you guessed it) a whooping crane.

Musically, Wild Ones sounds pretty much as you’d expect one man’s love letter to the natural world to sound. You could define it using the umbrella phrase “folk”, but with the 20+ instruments on show that doesn’t really do it justice. Fans of JBM (or Jesse Marchant as we’re calling him now) will like it, as will fans of more straightforward singer-songwriters (online biographies mention Nick Drake and Ray LaMontagne a lot). Let’s just say that it is as diverse and beautiful as the landscapes and habitats which inspired it.

Ross puts it best himself when he says, “Wild Ones is a dedication album not only for endangered species and their natural habitats at risk but also for the independent thinkers who have fought to preserve their wild sub-culture, rituals, values and essential spirit that was born out of our natural world. This is for the wild ones.”

You can buy the album right now via the Peirson Bandcamp page.

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Buy the EP and help save some real live tigers here, and watch the guys performing ‘Cramm’ over at beatcast.tv.

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I’ve been reading a collection of short stories by Richard Ford, Rock Springs, where the assorted characters do little more than merely exist in the little lives that they complicate for themselves. They are people who struggle to communicate, struggle to find peace in others, struggle to escape the melancholy of an individual’s ultimate lonliness, but refuse to give up and be reclusive or eternally pessimistic. These people keep going back for more, the vague flickering optimism of the constant motion of time and the possibility it brings (a new start or finding ‘The One’) too alluring to ever stop looking. Often these stories take place within recognisable situations, circumstances we can all remember or imagine happening to us. They aren’t fantastic or far-fetched. They aren’t fantasy. They are real problems and feelings woven into everyday actions, great drama and psychic pain in its true form, tiring and boring and in no way noble.

Dream River, despite the title, reminded me of this style of storytelling. Bill Callahan’s lyrics are packed with emotion and meaning but are not concerned with fantastic metaphors. There is a feeling of practicality, a sense of everyday functioning, characters living, existing, rather than narrating from some abstract position outside of their reality. These are characters rooted in their lives, men telling their story through actions rather than thoughts. It’s as if you are watching their lives unfold rather than listening to their recollections.

One of the key ingredients of this everyday cycle of melancholy and hope is the passage of time – it allows regret and loss but always enables a prospect of something different, a brighter future. One can bear painful or monotonous situations because time passes and things inevitably change. Dream River often references the natural world, the bigger picture, a reminder that outside of each discrete narrative there is always something infinitely bigger, some ancient certainty of change that can never be influenced by mere individuals. Take ‘Summer Painter’ for example:

’I painted names on boats for a summer…
…I painted these while beavers built dams all around me’

’And come September, come fall
Holding a job was not believable behavior at all, so I split
But like a beaver is a dam builder, you never really quit
I made some dough and I socked it away
I always said for a rainy day’

Callahan uses nature as an example of his message. Throughout the album there is mention of trees and eagles and rivers, simple, knowable things which for whatever reason conjure a sense of something unknowable, something too expansive or old to properly define. Even the composition brings to mind some organic space, some untamed wilderness. It matches perfectly the whole atmosphere of Dream River, where people tell simple stories that conjure strange feelings, tales that hint at something mysterious and meaningful and important with nothing more than ordinary words. The result is something positive. While it admits that we cannot sit down and work out answers to the questions of life, it hints that simple things are not necessarily superficial, and in them we can find solace and happiness. As it says in ‘Winter Road’:

’Oh I have learned when things are beautiful
To just keep on, just keep on
Oh, when things are beautiful, just keep on’

Does it matter why things make us feel better? Bill Callahan tells us that it’s the fact they do is what’s important.

You can buy Dream River from Drag City or the Bill Callahan Bandcamp page.

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Hello Earth Person! I hope life is treating you well? Could you maybe detail how and why you started making music?

Hello Wake the Deaf,

The primordial beginnings of my musical journey started quite a few years back, before I was in high school. I had these two friends who were brothers, and they owned a computer and a midi keyboard. This kind of technology was a novelty to me at the time. I was completely amazed by it. We would spend hours creating very strange electronic songs together. Thinking back I realize that we were unintentionally exploring absurdist realms. Our songs were mainly about frying pans and men in dark suits with no faces. Anyway, this experience inspired me to get my own midi keyboard. That’s how I discovered the doorway into the dimension of sound and resonance. I also started playing the drums around this time, and formed a band with some neighborhood friends. We still play together to this day! That’s a brief answer to the question of “how?” The answer to “why?” is simply that I had no control or choice. I was drawn into music by unexplainable forces: the circumstances of my existence. I just fell in love with it. I think music is a creative act, not an act of creation. To play music is to become a conduit, or a channel through which earth-energy flows. There is no “creation” because all forces are ancient echoes without beginning or end. However it is totally possible to sing with this energy, and to harmonize your whole “self” with it.

You seem have strong opinions on the attitude of society towards the nature and change. It’s something which I covered briefly in a piece about Beasts of the Southern Wild; the general pessimism of people towards mankind and the environment. I have studied zoology for the last four years and it seemed each and every topic we covered either had some stark warning or else it was already too late and we were looking at the dire consequences of our existence. Without wishing to sound overly idealistic (and therefore dreamy, unpractical etc.), I can’t help but think we are looking at things the wrong way, that a change to optimism could be much more productive in the long run. This is something you are hinting at in the music?

This is exactly what I am hinting at in my music! Positivity is the new wavelength of thought. American culture is currently undergoing a monumental shift in consciousness. This is a difficult process, as we have to face so many dark and horrifying truths about our own personalities. However the light within us is a source of ultimate love that will help us through this transition. The light makes the shadows dance.
Really what I see happening is the illusion of American progress disintegrating as we slowly awake to the harsh realities of global capitalism. Environmental destruction, mass extinctions, world poverty, oppression, exploitation and war; these are facts. And it’s getting more and more difficult to ignore them, despite the shiny plastic veneer of consumer culture that surrounds us.

I view these problems as the consequences of a past dynasty: a time when the west believed that all things were created for the benefit and use of ‘man’, who God had chosen to have dominion over the entire earth. Of course this is a very ignorant worldview, and it creates a hierarchical structure of domination that is extremely oppressive. It creates a world where women are abused, where nature is violently exploited, and where the diversity of human culture is narrowly singularized. As a result of this white male, egocentric domination we are experiencing all of this psychological, cultural, and spiritual sickness at a collective level. Individual hopelessness and alienation are just some of the symptoms.

I hear people say all the time that “nothing can be done because the system is too powerful. It is unsusceptible change”, and also that “human beings are parasitic and killing the Earth”. Indeed there is some truth to these thoughts. However the situation is more complex than this, and should be given more thought. I don’t agree that “nothing can be done” because the “system is too powerful, and unsusceptible to change”. The system is actually very malleable, penetrable, and collapsible. If you think of this all-powerful system as a giant organic machine, and your own life as one cell in this bio-machine body, it starts to become clear how your life can affect the genetic makeup of the larger machine organism. Every decision you make to change the way you live in turn affects the way the machine operates. This is because everyone you know is also a cell in the body of the capitalist machine. How you live inevitably has an affect on how your friends and family live, and this in turn influences the people who are closest to them. These ripples of influence continue traveling throughout the whole machine body until every cell of it has been slightly changed. The system is afraid of us realizing the power we have to change it, because it draws its own subsistence from this power or life energy. That is why it oppresses, and tries to control our freedom. That is why it attempts to suffocate creative thought, and human expression.

These human capacities we all posses threaten the livelihood of the machine. When we see beyond the boundaries of conformity, control, rigid linearity, and segmentation, and tap into deeper visions of reality that transcend the illusions of concrete un-changeability, we discover our true human potential, and the possibility of a world of balance and equality without fear, hate, violence, war, exploitation, oppression, suffering, or environmental destruction. There is no king, only one Earth. All substance and matter are interconnected. Your mind is like a conduit through which thought and light flows, and this is what gives shape to reality. Love is the deepest expression of being.

Do you have a scientific background? Or are you following ideas from elsewhere? I don’t intend this question as any sort of challenge or put-down – the origin of different visions for the world and ways to look after it are incredibly interesting and I’m not naive enough to ignore any – but rather just a query into what influences you. Are your views (and therefore your art) formed by scientific, philosophical or spiritual means? Or maybe a mix of the three?

My main focus of study has been philosophy, and this has influenced my thinking about reality significantly. I have always found existence to be a very mysterious phenomenon. There are all of these seemingly unanswerable questions that human beings are faced with. I find it nearly impossible to ignore these questions. That’s why I was drawn to philosophy. However, I wouldn’t say that philosophy defines me. All of the dimensions of life are interconnected and equally influential. Philosophy has helped to shape my perception, but so have the seasons of Earth, my neighbors, my family, and friends, the internet, technology, food, drugs, the stars, birds, insects … everything! Music is so important to me because it is my spiritual connection to reality. It allows me to channel my influences, share stories, and give something back to the Universe. There is nothing logical or reasonable about it, and that’s part of the beauty. The ancient traditions of drumming, singing, and chanting are our tools for mystical awakening.

It’s funny, I can imagine a lot of people would write off a musician who wants to spread a hopeful message as some New-Age dreamer or a hippy or whatever, using those terms as an insult, no matter how much sense that person is talking and irrespective of the fact that that person is actually defending mankind, proclaiming honesty and human connection and so on. Would you be happy being pegged into such groups? Do you feel part of that sort of scene?

If someone were to attempt to insult me by calling me a hippy or a New-Age dreamer they would be unsuccessful. I love hippies and New-Age Dreamers! However I don’t claim to be any of those things myself. People are free to make their own interpretations, whether they are accurate ones or not. I have no particular desire to be a part of any scene: I only to wish to spread messages of peace and love, and to give respect to the earth. Music is my method. I chose the name Earth Person because I want to convey the truth that I am simply a person from earth. Isn’t this what all human beings have in common? Even the top CEO of the most powerful corporation is an earth person, born of a woman, breathing and living on the same planet as the rest of us. If we’re going to create a more peaceful and ecologically harmonious society we need to start acknowledging the deeply interconnected nature of reality. I guess the best response to your question is: I am an earth person, a part of the human-beings-living-on-the-planet scene. Call it future-folk, or social-transmutation.

I know that what we have discussed thus far is quite enough inspiration, but is there anything else which influences your writing progress? Maybe other bands or some forms of literature?

One book that was very influential on me was ‘The Great Work’ by Thomas Berry. This is a good place to start exploring ecological consciousness. Also worth exploring is the book ‘A Thousand Plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia’ by Felix Guattari, and Gilles Deleuze. If you are interested in dissolving boundaries, or learning how to create new pathways that deviate from the strict linear routes of capitalist control then check it out. I also suggest studying Marx, Gandhi, and existentialism. Oh, and lastly try to find the essay ‘Ancient Futures’ by Helena Norberg-Hodge. All of these writings were very helpful to me!

Finally, can you name a few artists you are listening to at the moment? They can be global superstars or your next-door neighbour, any four or five acts you are currently enjoying.

I have been really enjoying this folk artist named Ty Maxon recently. His album Calling of the Crows is wonderful! I also completely fell in love with that album Permanence by Paul Stewart which you posted on your ‘best free music of 2012’ listing. Three fellow Maine musicians who deserve some attention are Jeff Beam, who is producing excellent psych-rock in Portland Maine, Laughing Animal, who makes some seriously groovy electronic music, and also The Powerful Bee Counters, who have completely opened my mind to what is possible in terms of style and creating lo-fi beauty. I highly suggest checking them out!

You can listen to and buy Earth Person’s music on Bandcamp.

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The film revolves around the inhabitants of Bathtub, a fictional island off Louisiana. Six year-old Hushpuppy (played by Quvenzhane Wallis, who received an Oscar nomination for the part) has to cope with an unwell and increasingly volatile father, an apocalyptic storm and an apathetic world. There are clear Katrina hints and environmental themes, but there is also a beautiful story about family here too. It is so refreshing to see something that explores our relationship with the environment that does not paint everybody as evil or weak or vain. This film is upbeat despite the undeniably bleak message, it is something that celebrates our existence rather than condemning it. For me the film says: yes, humanity is to blame for a vast amount of damage and suffering (ecological or otherwise), but there is optimism in single humans, in individuals. Humans can be resiliant and tenacious and loving, and these are the very characteristics that can save us.

Anyway, back to the soundtrack. It was co-produced by Dan Romer and director Benh Zeitlin. The music, which is for the most part minimalist, feels part of the very fabric of the visuals and the story, as if the narrative could have been woven from the music just as easily as it was created the other way around. I’m not sure whether it is a completely fair observation (as I’m sure most movie composers work closely to match their work with the film in question) but I felt that it was apparent that the director had helped score his own film. 

It’s simple, just like the lives of the people of Bathtub. There is no flashy instrumentation, no thundering of a grand orchestra, just evocative and masterfully thought out music that adds an extra dimension to Hushpuppy’s view of her world. There are tracks that feature Cajun music (such as The Lost Bayou Ramblers, Leroy “Happy Fats” LeBlanc and the Balfa Brothers) and these are surrounded by the usually minimalist soundtrack, successfully portraying them as something Hushpuppy experiences in between or as well as her own mental soundtrack (i.e. the main soundtrack to the film). It is a clever concept that I’d guess would come across much better if you have seen the film.

Get the soundtrack from iTunes and the other usual places and have a listen on Spotify (boo!). Try and see the film if you can, it is a joyous watch. Check out the trailer below.

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