Maybe it’s the Colorado boy in me, but I gravitate towards music that sounds like an open space; like being outside in the sunshine on a cloudless day. There is a quality in the reverb and fuzz of the music on this cassette which captures that beautifully; a warmth in the production and recording triggering a scent-memory of fresh dirt and pine needles. Lyrically the songs allude to cars, buildings, and cities; the kind of gentle late-20s ennui that fills in the space of so much acoustic guitar oriented songwriting, but I can’t get the images of quiet, cool forests out of my head. It’s the effects on the guitar (electric this time) that make the melodies bloom out of the speakers and hang around the room like incense. The last song on the a-side, “Dirge,” was where it clicked into place; contextualizing the preceding songs into a warm melding of longing and calm. The interplay of the words and music here articulate a tension between city living gently discoloring the days of a life and the quite, restorative serenity of a sunrise in the mountains slowly taking the chill out of the morning air.
More about: Falsetto Boy
